Dispensary Corner

April 15, 2011

	POOL pony. The call of nature resulted in an unusual day for one horse enthusiast, who had to call in the cavalry after his horse got stuck in a swimming pool. According to reports, the rider jumped off his horse to have a cheeky wee in the bushes whilst leaving his trusty steed to wait for him unsecured. What started as a simple plan turned into a complicated rescue after the horse became spooked and jumped into a nearby swimming pool. It took a team of 11 firefighters, assisted by a group of horse experts, to calm the wet pony enough to secure it with straps and haul it out of the water to freedom and a few carrots.
	THE natural order? The Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat in Ontario, Canada, has launched an unusual initiative to raise awareness about the plight of polar bears – a ‘people pool’ within the bears enclosure. The polar bear encounter is safer than it sounds, with the people pool and the bear pool separated by 25cm thick Plexiglass. The people pool has been designed to resemble the bears natural environment, and allows bears and people to get a long, close look at each other. Park operators are also hoping that the “encounter” will help to stimulate its bears, a hope which appears to be coming to fruition with staffers witnessing bears at times “stalking” visitors as they would do in the wild.
	SOCIAL networking gone mad. A Dutch woman has had the profile photos of all of her 152 Facebook ‘friends’ tattooed on her arm (pictured). The anonymous female has gone further by posting a video of the tattooing procedure on YouTube. “These are not all my friends – just the people I care most about,” she said. “To me it represents who I am right now and the time we live in”. To view the graphic procedure see youtube.com/pharmacydaily.
	DANGEROUS driving. A pair of Kazakhstan nationals caught the attention of the German media recently, after they were pulled over for some rather unusual dangerous driving. According to reports, the pair were attempting to save money by transporting their newly acquired Mazda 626 in the back of their van, sideways. The men had manoeuvered the Mazda into the back of the van with the help of a few friends, using mattresses on either side to avoid the car getting scratched. Their dreams came to an end however when police pulled them over because their van had been riding very low to the ground whilst also swaying a lot. Both the van and the Mazda have since been confiscated until the pair can organise other means of transport.
	SOME people really don’t let illness interfere with their lives. A Chinese man has gained instant fame after he was photographed by another motorist driving while receiving an intravenous drip. The photographer, Zhou Tao, spotted the vehicle in the western city of Xian. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the IV pole sticking out of the window and the driver receiving treatment,” he said. The patient has been nicknamed ‘Injection Brother,’ with internet photos receiving over 100,000 hits in just two hours.
	ARMLESS archer. An US man born without arms, Matt Stutzman, is fast becoming an Olympic favourite after beating out his able-bodied competitors for a chance to be part of archery team trials. Using his feet, head and mouth to work the bow and arrows, Stutzman says he is confident he’ll make the team and win gold, gold, gold for the USA at the London Olympics next year.
	SOME enterprising Mexican smugglers have attempted to bypass customs officers, sniffer dogs and body pat-downs by creating a massive “medieval catapult” (pictured) to fling drugs across the US border. Police just south of Arizona have seized 23kg of marijuana and a “metal-framed catapult” complete with a massive elastic band, mounted on a trailer next to the international border fence.
	SO clean you can eat off it? It seems toilet chic is the new look for restaurants in 2011. A recently opened restaurant in the Chinese province of Yunnan is proving to be onto a winner, with tourists and locals alike flocking to have a meal whilst sitting on a loo. Meals on offer include ‘toilet bowl hot pot’, ‘fried poo sticks’ and ‘excrement ice cream’. To add extra ambiance, the Modern Toilet restaurant also features urinal wall features. “We had a survey before opening, and 20% of people wanted to try it, 60% weren’t sure, while only 20% found the idea unacceptable,” said Modern Toilet owner, Xu Liang.
	IF you’ve had a hard day at work spare a thought for the road builders working on Shifou Mountain in China’s Hunan Province. Considered one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet, the roadbuilders are currently in the process of creating a 3.21km wooden path thousands of metres above the ground (pictured). “It’s not as dangerous as people think,” said one road builder. “You just wear the ropes, and then everything is okay,” he added.
	PEOPLE in need of a comforting cuddle – search no more! Inventors from the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo have created a device which can dish out the hugs – albeit with strings attached. The Sense-Roid looks like the torso of a mannequin and is covered in silicone skin, inside of which features pressure sensors. To score a hug, users need to don a special jacket with an inbuilt air compressor. Instead of literally being embraced by the torso, the air compressors react to the user embracing the mannequin and replicate the pressure of a hug. Additional vibrations in the jacket add to the effect.
	NOT a natural phenomenon. Scientists baffled by the sudden colour change of the Goldstream River in British Columbia, have uncovered the reason for the transformation, fluorescein. The river, a known tourist haunt because of its natural beauty, appeared to change from its usual clear colour to bright green over the course of an hour, leaving visitors to the area stunned. The colour lasted for around three hours before the river once again ran clear. Subsequent testing of the water found that fluorescein (a fluorescent tracer) had been added to the water. Fortunately no fish or animals were harmed as a result of the colourful addition. It is not yet known who dyed the river green.
	The World’s Ugliest Dog crown has been bestowed upon Yoda, a 14-year old Chinese-crested Chihuahua. Rescued from abandonment behind an apartment building by his loving owner, Yoda sports a protuding tongue and almost hairless legs. His owner told media that when she first found her beloved pooch, she thought he was a rat, however having a closer look realised it was a pup, scooped him up took him home and named him after the rather withered-looking Star Wars favourite. Other crowd pleasers in the ugly line-up included Handsome Hector, who was the 2010 Ugliest Dog runner-up and whose entrance elicited more than a few giggles from the crowd with the words: “Handsome Hector, aka Hecki, is, in his own opinion, devastatingly handsome”.
	HOW about this for a pithy contribution to the carbon tax debate? A TV host in China has started riding his bicycle around Guangdong in the nude (pictured). “I want to promote environmental protection and low-carbon life via an extreme but also an effective way, which is the nude body language,” explained Ou Zhihang.
	THE dangers of speeding… A horse from Meppen in the province of Lower Saxony, Germany, has been busted bolting for freedom by a speed and red-light camera, after escaping from its owner’s paddock. The pony was galloping at full tilt for many kilometres before bystanders were able to stop it and lead it safely home. In defense of the horse, the camera only snapped its escapades because a nearby car was speeding. According to reports, the driver of the offending vehicle has since petitioned local authorities to withdraw the speeding fine, due to the fact that he was speeding in an attempt to avoid the wayward horse.
	HEALTHY exercise? A group of employees in China have pushed their boss’s car home after a long lunch. According to reports the group was left in a quandary after enjoying an elongated lunch replete with free alcohol in Changchun. It was towards the end of the excursion that the company president realised he was far too drunk to get behind the wheel of a car, a problem which was further compounded by the fact that none of his company employees had turned down the chance to drink a lot for free. Also worried by the new laws enacted in China this year, which saw drink driving listed as a hazardous crime punishable with gaol time, the company’s Vice President suggested that everyone simply push the car 4.8kms back to their boss’ home, pointing out that the exercise would be good for them all. It took them 45 mins of hard labour, singing and loud laughter to get the VW to their boss’ house, and whilst police decided not to fine them because the engine was not on, they did warn of the dangers of being drunk and pushing a car in traffic.
	ONE big headache. A 22-year old man in China has used a lifetime’s worth of luck to survive a fall and a steel pole to the skull. According to local media the man, a builder, had been working on a construction site in Quanzhou when he fell, impounding a steel pole 15 centimetres into his own skull. The 1.2cm thick pole took a whopping five hours in surgery to remove. “It’s very rare to see such a severely injured patient,” said Doctor Zhuang, who confirmed that the young builder is in a serious but stable condition.
	A CASE for some first aid training? In what could be an attempt for a 2011 Darwin Award, Ukranian zoo owner Aleksandr Pylyshenko has moved into his lions’ den. Taking to his new home like a cat to a couch, Pylyshenko has said that during his stay he will sleep on the wooden floor with the pride, be fed his food through the bars alongside his lions, and perhaps in his most unwise move will be present for the birth of one of his lionesses’ new baby cubs. “I plan to see the cubs being born and spend some time with them but then I will move out,” he said. To capture his lion-like retreat, Pylyshenko has planted four webcams in the cage and is broadcasting his bizarre “reality show” live on the internet. As for his motivation, the stunt is aimed at raising funds for the zoo, with Pylyshenko, an aspiring artist, telling media that he will paint whilst in the cage, and sell his works to help pay the bills.
	BALL baffles brilliant brains. A massive ball of ice has members of the scientific community divided as to its origin. Found by a group of mushroom pickers in the middle of a forest in the Czech Republic, the large ball of ice was surrounded by a pool of mud, which it presumably created by melting. According to reports, there were no footprints around the ice, and no signs of how it came to rest in the middle of a forest. Some are heralding the discovery as the world’s largest hailstone, whilst other scientists have argued that it must be man-made because it is nearly impossible that it fell through the sky to the ground without breaking up. “It would have weighed tonnes – how it was moved here without a lorry is a mystery,” one local farmer told media. Despite scientific skepticism the huge frigid ball is now attracting vast amounts of interest from across the globe by UFO spotters and alien enthusiasts.
	A FEW science sums may have saved the day. An overly zealous truck driver, eager to deliver his quarry of sand in Bejing’s Huairou, may have saved himself a whole lot of trouble by completing a simple calculation before driving onto the Baihe Bridge. According to reports, the truck was carrying 160 tonnes of sand – 105 more than the 55 tonne rating of the bridge. After just a few metres of travel on the bridge, the driver felt a sudden shift underneath his truck, which turned out to be the bridge, buckling and caving under the weight of sand and metal. Fortunately no one was injured in the bridge collapse, however the driver was escorted from the scene for “questioning”.
	ALL five food groups? A hamburger described as breakfast, lunch and dessert rolled into one is being hailed as Australia’s most unhealthy meal. Weighing in with a whopping 6000kJ, the aptly titled ‘OMG’ burger is crafted using two Krispy Kreme doughnuts serving as the bun, two beef patties, two very generous slices of cheese, two slices of bacon, and a token serve of lettuce – just to keep the doughnuts from getting soggy. Now for those of you that aren’t disgusted by the OMG, but are in fact wanting to try it, it may be a long drive between feeds, with the burger only being served up at independent Brisbane fast-food outlet Chompers. Dieticians estimate that diners wanting to burn off the kilojoules from eating one of these monsters would need to run about 21 kilometres.
	PERHAPS some ginseng would have focused his mind? A driver in Poland has ended up out of his depth after a supposed short-cut led him straight into a large body of water. Wojciech Lapinski was driving his 86 year old mother to a family function, when sick of traffic he ignored warnings and took a shortcut into a flooded tunnel. To add insult to injury, the flooding was caused by a busted sewage pipe, and landed Lapinski, his mother and his Toyota in three-feet of muddy coloured and stinky water. “It did put a bit of a dampener on the day,” Lapinski’s mother told rescuers.
	SMALL gets even smaller. A Kiwi mechanic, Lester Atherfold, has shaved a cool 2ft 8ins off his Mini in order to fit it under the bed of his motor home. The project took just three months to complete, and saw the 10ft Mini slim down to a mere 7ft 10ins via the extraction of its middle and the narrowing of its chassis.
	COMMUTERS in China are being encouraged to exercise more during their daily travels, with the installation of massive punching bags at a number of suburban railways stations in Beijing. As well as providing a way to exercise, authorities are hoping to provide delayed travellers with a way of venting their spleen, rather than abusing train staff. The bags are emblazoned with a reminder that “each year, you will spend about 1824 minutes waiting at stops. “Don’t waste time, please have a few punches on our pressure-releasing pillars,” they say. A train guard on the subway welcomed the move, saying: “As long as they’re punching them and not us, I’m happy”.
	Amcal Max in Doncaster East, Melbourne, is celebrating after being named Amcal/Amcal Max Store of the Year for the third year running. Business manager Sam Maalouf told PD that the pharmacy has a team of more than 50 staff who make sure they give every customer 100% service and advice. “We are also lucky to have such an excellent Sigma team that supports the store and makes it all happen,” he added. Pictured above last week from left: Sreedar Sreenivasan, Pharmacist/Partner; Saqif Shaams, Pharmacist; Sam Maalouf, Business Manager; Marcus Thomas, Senior Pharmacy Assistant; Kerilyn Schaller, Senior Pharmacy Assistant; Natasha Heger, Pharmacy Naturopath; and Sarah Carson, Dispensary Assistant.
	BLUSHING brides will be stocking up on Telfast if they decide to wear these special shoes. A Serbian florist says he’s flat out due to strong demand for his new range, which involves painstakingly decorating bridal shoes with real flowers (pictured). 29-year-old Nikola Mihailovic said “Every girl wants to look like a princess on her wedding day and I’ve found a great way for them to feel that way”. Mihailovic travels to every wedding personally with a small battery-powered refrigerator to keep the blossoms fresh. A number of reports quip that brides suffering from hayfever could describe the creation as made by Jimmy a-ti-Choo.
	SOMETHING in the water? Debate over the existence of the legendary Loch Ness monster has again ignited, with the son of the man who captured the iconic image of Nessie 50 years ago, undertaking a media campaign to convince the world the creature is real. Simon Dinsdale, a retired police detective and son of Nessie photographer, kicked off his media blitz with a candid BBC interview where he told reporters he personally saw Nessie twice. “I’m experienced at looking at evidence and I can tell you that on the balance of probabilities there is something large and unknown living in this loch,” he said.
	ONCE in a lifetime pair. A pair of baby albino kookaburra sisters have been handed into the Eagles New Wildlife Park in Cairns, after they were found on the ground after a storm. Believed to be the only albino kookaburras in the world, the pair will now live in the park because they would not be likely to survive in the wild, given their lack of camouflage and poor eyesight.
	A TASTY treat to send your sodium levels soaring. What could possibly be better than salty nuts to harden up arteries? How about combining salted nuts with salted meat for a match made in heaven – SPAM flavoured macadamia nuts. Where can you get this delicious TV snack PD hears you cry? Well where else but the land of cheese in a can, pretzel flavoured M&Ms and coffee flavoured Coca-Cola – the United States of America. Spotted by a PD team member on holiday in Honolulu yesterday at the Hilo Hattie Hawaiiana outlet, the SPAM flavoured Macadamia nuts are pictured below for your enjoyment.
	MEDICAL miracle. Two Austrian teenagers have walked away from a fall which would have killed anyone else, after their car tumbled down a 900-foot precipice. According to several reports, the car landed so hard at the bottom of the valley that it folded entirely in half (see picture). The alarm was raised by a local hunter who noticed the fresh skid marks leading off the road, and then following the trail, found the car related debris scattered all the way down the sheer drop. The teens were airlifted to the hospital shortly after, with medics convinced they had sustained massive internal injuries. The pair however only suffered superficial cuts and grazes, and were released from hospital two days later.
	PAINFUL hunt. An English tattoo enthusiast is set to buy-out his local pharmacist’s supply of Bepanthen following a massive 24-hour tattooing session to create a “Where’s Wally” scene. The massive tattoo takes up the whole of John Mosley’s back, and features 150 characters, including Darth Vader, a man carrying a sabretooth tiger, a horse and chariot, and of course, Wally. Not just for fun, the tattoo helped Mosley raise UK£2,000 for the Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital in London. “It will be a talking point for years to come,” said Mosley. “People will look at my back and have fun searching around for Wally,” he added.
	WHEN Stingose and a Band-aid won’t help a bite… Villagers have captured one of the largest ever crocodiles in the Philippines, after a three-week hunt, sparked by concerns for their health and safety. The 6.4-metre long fresh water croc (pictured) weighed in at a massive 1,075 kilograms and was caught in Bunawan in the southern Philippines. It took 90 men to pull the reptile from the river, and plans are now in place for the monster to be the star attraction at a planned ecotourism park.
	EVERLASTING life… Whilst many scoff at Elvis’ seeming ability to cheat death, one fan has taken the world’s media proof of the King’s continued existence, in the form of a cloud formation The fan, Marta Gerique snapped Elvis in the sky whilst on holiday in Valencia, Spain. “It caught my attention because the sun had lightened it from behind and it was such a rare shape,” she said. “I didn’t initially see Elvis but when I got a good look at in on the screen of my Blackberry I realised it was definitely him – his hair is unmistakable,” she added. It was the perfect coup for the die-hard fan, who even wakes up with Elvis, playing Devil in Disguise via her alarm clock.
	WOULD you do this for a customer? A dedicated customer service adviser in the UK, Steve Jones, went above the call of duty last month, when he sent his own artwork to a disgruntled customer, to smooth ruffled feathers. According to reports, the unhappy customer, Bill Bennett, wrote to UK chain Marks and Spencer to request a refund after he was overcharged £3.00 for a £1.90 salmon sandwich. A few days later he was promised a gift card, which never came, so he wrote again, this time tongue in cheek asking also for a hand drawn smiling dinosaur to compensate him for the inconvenience. To his surprise within a few days a £5 gift card arrived along with a note saying “Please also find a picture of a smiling dinosaur, hand drawn. Unfortunately art was never my strong point, but I hope you will appreciate it,” from Steve Jones. Bill was so happy with Steve’s artwork that he put it on the internet, and it has since gone viral.
	THE price of looking good. A 56-year old Chinese man, Zhang Nan, has ended up in hospital after a home beauty treatment went awfully wrong. The procedure involved swimming with live eels, which Nan was told would help to shave ten years off his looks as they would eat off his dead skin. To save money, Nan went to the markets, bought ten live six inch eels, got them home, popped them in a bathtub filled with water then hopped in. At first Nan enjoyed the wriggly eels eating off his skin, but after a short while he experienced a sharp stab of pain in his groin, and watched in horror as an eel began to worm up his urethra. “I tried to grab the eel to pull it out again but it was too slippery and disappeared,” he said. Nan overcame his embarrassment a few hours later when the worm didn’t reappear, and took himself to Wuhan People’s Hospital where doctors used an ultrasound to locate the wayward eel in his bladder. It took a three hour operation to remove the eel, which was deceased. Nan has now sworn off eel baths, and will instead pursue other means to retain his youth.
	TOUGH pill to swallow. A thief was caught red handed after an x-ray revealed a diamond inside his stomach. The strange heist began when a British woman on holiday in Spain discovered her handbag had been stolen from the floor of a restaurant she had been eating at with a friend. Unfortunately, rather than just some sunscreen and a few dollars, the woman’s handbag was carrying a pendant with a £10,000 diamond and around £2,000 cash. Later that day four men, found to have criminal records, were stopped in a car trying to get through a routine checkpoint. An inspection of their vehicle uncovered a plethora of stolen goods, including the handbag, cash and pendant – sans jewel. Police became suspicious when one of the men put his hand to mouth and swallowed. They decided that as the diamond was missing from the pendant there was a strong possibility that it had been imbibed, and an x-ray confirmed suspicions (below). It is not known how the diamond was retrieved.
	HOW far we’ve come! One of the first-ever walking and talking human-style robots, George, is back on his game after 45 years of standing and gathering dust in the corner of his creator’s garage. Tony Sale was 19 when he created George in 1950, using spare metal from a Wellington Bomber Plane. At the time his invention stunned his contemporaries, who had never seen a walking talking robot, however rudimentary technology stopped him from having a memory and his charm soon lost its effect, and he got stuffed into Tony’s garage .
	HEART attack strikes again. The notoriously anti-health conscious American eatery, the Heart Attack Grill, has launched a new promotional campaign which is likely to raise the ire of most health professionals. The promotion allows people who weigh more than 158kgs to dine in the restaurant for free. The poster-boy for the campaign is Heart Attack Grill lover Blair River who weighs in at 304kgs, and was paid around $250 an hour to make a YouTube video and model for promotional pictures. Strangely enough the Heart Attack Grill chain was founded by former nutritionist and Jenny Craig weight loss clinic manager, Jon Basso. The Grill features waitresses in hospital gowns, serving calorie rich foods and beverages (including the Double Bypass Burger) and after finishing, guests can opt to be wheel-chaired out to their car instead of walking.
	HEADS, shoulders, toes and fingers. Doctors at Zhengzhou Hospital, in the Chinese Henan Province, have managed to save a nine-year old girl’s hand, by grafting it onto her shin. Ming Li was walking to school three months ago when she was run over by a tractor, an event which left her with a severed arm. On arrival at the hospital doctors determined that with the arm in the condition that it was, it would have been impossible to reattach it in the right spot. As such they grafted it onto her right calf, and let it heal for three months, before detaching it again, and reattaching it in its original location. According to doctors Li’s recovery is going well, with colour returning to the limb. Not out of the woods just yet, Li still needs two more operations, one to improve the functionality of her hand, and the other to improve the look of her scars.
	LOTS of sunscreen will be needed by people who camp in these tents. A French designer has come up with a new type of see-through ‘bubble tent’ which he says is designed to get people as close to nature as possible. Pierre Stephane Dumas described the ‘Bubble Tree’ creations as “unusual huts for unusual nights” – allowing people to really see what’s happening in the environment around them. “I designed this eccentric shelter with the aim of offering an unusual experience under the stars while keeping all the comfort of a bedroom suite,” he said. The so-called CristalBubble (pictured) is fully see-through, but don’t worry – there’s another variant with opaque walls but still a clear ceiling for less exhibitionist campers.
	PRICELINE hits the books. Priceline and Sally Hansen have together set a new Guinness World Record for the most nails filed and varnished in eight hours. Yesterday 100 manicurists, armed with files, polishes, cotton buds and handcream, set up at Sydney’s Martin Place, and took care of 25,720 fingernails during a total 2,572 mini-manicures. Each mini-mani took around 12 minutes to complete, during which time women received a file, base coat, two coats of varnish and a top coat, whilst men received a file and a buff to shine. Whilst garnering a lot of attention, the stunt also helped raise more than $20,000 for the cancer support charity Look Good…Feel Better. For every manicure Sally Hansen donated $5, whilst Priceline offered free in-store manicures for a donation.
	ANGLING for an ER visit. A pair of anglers have found themselves on the wrong end of the fishing line, after one hooked the other in the face. The men were fishing off the coast of Poland, when after joking about catching nothing during the trip, Bogdan Symanski felt a fiery pain in his cheek. “[My friend] had put out one last cast and there was this sudden tug on my mouth and then blinding pain,” he said. “There was blood everywhere, maybe if I’d kept my big mouth shut he would have missed me,” he added. A rescue boat took no time reaching the pair, quickly removing the hook and stemming the significant blood flow. “He was lucky it wasn’t a few inches higher or it would’ve taken his eye out,” said rescue medic Piotr Kroczynski.
	WHAT’S health compared to free admission? Two visitors to Zhonghau Castle in China have been hospitalised after trying to scale its 70ft walls to avoid the $5 admission fee. According to reports, the tourists were trying to emulate the same feat successfully undertaken by local woman Ma Jei, who had stunned onlookers with her nimble climb earlier in the day. According to Jei, she has visited the castle often since her early childhood and had always avoided paying admission by simply climbing in. “She ran up the wall like a goat and made it look easy,” said one stunned onlooker.
	MAN of steel becomes plastic man. A 35 year old Filipino man, Herbert Chavez, has spent the last decade in and out of plastic surgeons theatres, sculpting his face and body to resemble his comic book hero Superman. So far Chavaz has undergone chin augmentation, to give him Superman’s cleft chin, rhinoplasty to emulate Christopher Reeves’ nose, silicone injections to shape his lips, and thigh implants to make his legs appear more muscular. “I have been a life-long fan of Superman after being given the costume when I was a child,” Chavez told local media. “As I am only 5ft 6 and Superman is 6ft 2 I wouldn’t rule out surgery to make me taller,” he added.
	ONLY in Japan. Lingerie maker Triumph has unveiled a special brassiere in Tokyo which aims to provide a big lift – both for busts and the country’s tourism sector. The ‘Yokoso Japan!’ support garment (pictured below) is said to be inspired by a tour guide’s uniform, and features an in-built display to highlight attractions. It can greet visitors in English, Chinese and Korean, and incorporates in-built tour guide flags which “act as side stays, providing good support and creating an attractive bust line”. Triumph said it was “identifying and making good use of abundant tourism assets that still remain untapped in Japan”. An optional, rather risque, feature is a short skirt attached to the bustier which flips up to reveal a map of Japan.
	EMERGENCY crews confront Evil. A team of ambulance officers were confronted with a horrific scene of blood and gore when they responded to a call from a movie set in Toronto, Canada. According to reports, 12 actors were injured when a high platform shifted suddenly. Ambulance officers arriving at the scene found the actors covered head to foot in blood and bits, but upon closer inspection discovered that they were made up as zombies for the newest instalment in the Resident Evil film franchise. The actors themselves had only sustained injuries ranging from bruises to a broken leg.
	PHARMACIES may need to order coat racks to stock this. An inventive NZ designer has created the world’s first breathalyser jacket, which lets wearers know when they have had too much alcohol. The jacket contains a nozzle in its collar which wearers can blow into, and which then carries the air to a sensor in the jacket’s pocket for breath/alcohol analysis. From here, the results are sent to lights stitched into the jacket’s forearm which get brighter depending on how much alcohol there is in the wearers system. The lights only glow for about a minute.
	NEW meaning to having a head like a melon. A Russian artist, Dimitri Tsykalov, is surprising the art world with his human skull creations. Fashioned out of fruit using surgery favourites including axes, saws, electrical drills, scalpels, pincers and cotton wool pads, the skulls are disturbingly lifelike, and following completion are left to rot as part of the ‘art’.
	NATURE vs nurture. Scientists, vets, zoologists and animal experts are banding together in the South American nation of Uruguay, to help rear a baby La Plata dolphin found abandoned with its umbilical cord still attached. The infant was discovered by three boys at Playa Verde beach with net marks on its body, meaning its mum had most likely been caught by fishermen moments after giving birth. The orphaned dolphin was quickly scooped up by the quick thinking trio and taken to the wildlife rescue centre SOS Rescate Fauna Marina. The baby, named Nipper, has since been given round the clock care including feeding with a tasty mix of fish, cream, cereal, water, vitamins and oral rehydration salts, and is now strong enough to be taken out for swims in the sea. Scientists and vets hope that when Nipper is strong enough they will be able to integrate him with a local wild pod of dolphins.
	BEAUTIFUL picture of mortality. Workmen in the Italian city of Modena have unearthed a pair of 1,500 year old skeletons, who appear to have been buried holding hands. According to scientists and archeologists, the pair are most likely to have been some form of nobility, as they appear to have been buried in a joint tomb inside a palace towards the end of the Roman Empire. Very little else is known about the origin and identity of the couple. “It is a very touching scene and very rare,” said one scientist upon sighting the remains.
	MEDICAL miracle. A litter of extremely rare white tiger cubs has been delivered at Kameltheaters Kernhof zoo in Austria, in what scientists and animal experts are calling nothing short of a miracle. “White Bengal tigers are very rare and usually arrive as single cubs,” said a zoo spokesperson. “To have three in one litter is amazing,” the spokesperson added. Not only lucky for the zoo and for the prospects of the species and its dwindling numbers, but the three zoo births are a very lucky occasion for the cubs themselves as they would have been unlikely to survive in the wild due to their albino colouring.
	WOULD you like a heart-attack with that? A US burger joint has unveiled its new menu item: the 153kg Absolutely Ridiculous Burger. At a cost of $2,000 a pop, the burger has a kilojoule count of 2.1m and takes 22 hours to cook.
	WOMEN can have a beard too. A Canadian fashion line, Beardowear, has released a new beanie which in addition to a woollen head warmer, features a built in adjustable acrylic beard, which can fit any face. The company claims the beanie is “always guaranteed to be full, perfectly coiffed, and super soft” with no itching or scratching”. For occasional beard dabblers, the attached beard can be stored inside the beanie during wear, or pulled out and displayed in all its glory.
	NO pain, no gain. Rolf Bucholz has claimed the title of World’s Most Pierced Man, after having clocked a massive 453 piercings. The 52-year old metal man is employed as a computer expert and boasts 25 eyebrow piercings, eight nose piercings, 94 lip piercings and a staggering 278 genital piercings.
	BRUSH with death. One incredibly fortunate driver was counting his lucky stars this week after having narrowly avoided death when hundreds of steel bars smashed through his front windscreen. According to reports, the 24- year old driver, Yang Junsheng was trying to avoid detection from a police officer because his car was unregistered when he crashed into a pick-up truck carrying a large load of steel bars. “My mind was very clear at that second, and I immediately dived down onto the passenger seat,” he said. “I heard an explosion and when the car stopped I couldn’t move because the car was full of metal bars,” he added. Surprisingly, once free from his vehicle Yang walked away with just a few scratches on his cheek.
	SKINLESS model still standing. Supermodel Heidi Klum shocked onlookers when she turned up skinless to a Halloween party. Rather than suffering skin removal and certain death, Klum opted to have her body painted to replicate a “dead body with the first layer of skin ripped off”. The rather gory costume, was completed when she was rolled up to the door of the Hollowood party on an autopsy trolley covered in a sheet. Klum them peeled back the sheet and gave the hordes of photographers a picture of herself sans skin.

	DISASTER averted. Holidaymakers at the Porthkerry Leisure Park in South Wales had a very near brush with death after part of the park’s cliff collapsed leaving 15 caravans teetering about 30m above a beach. According to reports the caravans were about four metres from the edge before the landslip occurred. Fortunately holidaymakers had been unable to access the caravans for a few weeks due to safety alerts after the appearance of cracks on the cliff edge. Subsequent visits by seismologists predicted the collapse but did not give a timeframe in which it would occur. Most of the precariously perched vans have now been recovered, however many of those with a van close to the edge facing the ocean are now reconsidering their “top-spot” position.
	BRUSH with mortality. A Swiss man is counting his lucky stars after a narrow miss with death, when a derailed tram slammed into his house. The man was just about to walk his dog when he looked up to see the tram careening towards him. With only seconds to spare the man and his dog bolted out of the way to watch the tram collide with a row of houses.
	A VIEW to die for? A skeleton has been found on top of a ladder enjoying the view at Sydney’s Bondi beach. Rather than a macabre murder mystery, the skeleton is in fact part of the Sculptures by the Sea exhibition currently taking place between Sydney’s Tamarama beach and Bondi over a 2km costal walk, and featuring over 100 sculptures.
	NEW school ambulance? It dosen’t look pretty, or even aerodynamic for that matter, but the new e-volvo Multicopter successfully took flight recently. Boasting 16 propellers, the e-volvo’s maiden flight lasted just one minute and thirty seconds, but is being billed as the beginning of a transport revolution. Designers of the Multicopter have high hopes for their baby, saying it will be used for leisure activities such as sightseeing, as an ‘air taxi’ and even as an air ambulance. The e-volvo mounts its 16 propellers to a rigid frame so that it takes off in a manner similar to a helicopter, with the propellors creating full lift and balancing the craft by independent speed controls. An onboard computer controls altitude and direction, whilst the chopper is piloted via a joystick.
	Someone needs a Berocca to give them back their B B bounce. An unfortunate pair of US 20- somethings have lost their respective cars to fires caused by a simple jump-start. The motoring mistake occurred when Andrew Jernigan offered his friend jumper-leads to start his stalled car. Unfortunately Jernigan attached the positive cable to the negative terminal on the battery and vice versa. The second Jernigan started his car, the leads began to melt making it impossible to remove them from the batteries, which then caught fire.
	A BIT of Savlon will fix that right up. Wen Le needed minor medical attentions and a lot of insurance after slamming her car through a brick wall whilst learning to park. The Learner driver was taking a lesson in an alley in Xiaolan, Guangdong province, when according to reports, she hit the accelerator instead of the brake, shooting the car, herself and her instructor through a wall. “She was slightly hurt but luckily no-one was standing on the other side of the wall when she came through,” said a police spokesman. After being patched for a few slight bumps Wen told reporters that she still was not sure of what happened, “I was parking very carefully and the car just took off,” she said.
	NATURE vs nurture. A photo of a tiger trying to cuddle up to a toddler has melted hearts around the world, after photographer Dyrk Daniels captured the moment for the media. According to Daniels, the tiger became interested in the tot after spotting her leaning against the glass of its enclosure. However rather than snarling at the child, the tiger sauntered over, put its paw to the glass and rubbed its face where the child was positioned.


	GIVE ‘em the finger. Twenty-year old Wang Yongjun is getting the chance to grow his middle finger outside of the womb, after he partially severed it off during an altercation with an electric saw. Wang was at work when the accident happened, and fortunately for him quick thinking co- workers were able to get him to hospital in time for doctors to perform surgery to attach the mangled finger to his stomach in order to grow a new fingertip. Prior to the attachment, surgeons had to cut away all the skin and muscle from the end of Wang’s finger, leaving only bone, before securing the bone and remaining finger flesh to the stomach in the hope that blood circulation would be restored and the finger would be able to repair itself. The surgery was a complete success and doctors now say Wang will have a new finger in less than a month.
	A USE for discarded hair. Have you ever wanted to do something useful with the hair caught in your hair brush? No? Well one UK dressmaker, Thelma Madine, decided to make the most of unwanted hair by crafting a dress made entirely of human hair. It took 250 metres of human hair, swept up from the floor of the Voodoo hair salon in Liverpool, Britain, as well as eight designers and 300 man hours to craft the colourful gown which weighs a whopping 95kgs. “It’s something that we’ve been thinking about designing for a while as it’s just so different,” said one of the design team. In addition to 250 metres of human hair, the dress also contains 1500 crystals and 12 underskirts.
	HORSE health scare. An 18-year old British university student, Danielle Morgan, has had a close call with a horse, a clothes horse. Danielle ran into trouble whilst she was “mucking about” and fell off her dormroom flatmate’s bed. Her fall was followed by the pair’s clothes horse, which landed on top of Danielle, somehow catching her head in its framework. Initially finding the whole thing very funny Danielle’s friends and university staff tried to free her from the horse’s clutches. Their attempts only further fastened the horse’s grip, leaving Danielle quite unravelled. After failing to release Danielle university staff called the fire department who were eventually able to free Danielle from her clothes drying device. “When we called the fire service I think they were quite amused,” Danielle said. “They said they’d seen a lot of things before but never this,’ she added. Apart from fear, Danielle only suffered minor bruising around the neck, but will think twice before drying her clothes inside.
	GOOD exercise. A British animal lover dragged a piano up the side of a mountain to play Beethoven for a group of blind elephants munching on grass. The man, Paul Barton, told media that he did the stunt to raise money for the endangered animals, as well as to fulfill a life long dream, and because he thought the elephants might like a bit of Beethoven. “It was a 50th birthday present to myself,” he said. “I have a really bad back, but I wanted to make the effort so I could feel like I had undergone a personal challenge,” he added. There is no word yet on whether the elephants actually enjoyed the slow movement 2 from Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, but they certainly didn’t rush to stomp the piano or its player during the tune.
	MEDICAL intervention. One US woman, Rossie Brovent, is seeking surgical intervention after a failed romance left her with a large tattoo of excrement on her back. According to reports Brovent had asked her partner, Ryan Fitzjerald, a tattoo artist, to create a beautiful full back tattoo of a scene from the famous CS Lewis novel, Narnia, but was left stunned when after hours under the needle she had a steaming pile of number two. The tattoo is reported to be the boyfriend’s revenge after discovering his lady love was not as faithful as he had imagined. Reports say that Brovent is now seeking damages of up $100,000.
	CHRISTMAS on steroids. In what seems to be an amplification of the Christmas spirit 250 Santa’s hit the slopes in the US state of Maine to raise money for needy children. The event had a strict dress code of “one red Santa hat including a white pompom, one red Santa jacket, one pair of red Santa pants, and a Santa beard.”
	HOPE they had their flu shots. A large group of very cold people bared up against London’s winter in bikinis and board shorts to make history, as part of Virgin Holidays Kensington High Street store’s bid to break the world record for the world’s largest swimwear queue. As yet it is not known if they were successful.
	CARING for your dog’s mind, body and spirit. Sparking what probably will be a new trend, a South African yoga instructor living in Hong Kong has launched dog yoga classes. Aimed at pampered pooches the ‘Doga’ classes involve both the owner and the dog, and are designed to help dogs find their inner peace. “Do dogs meditate? Yes, I think they can,” said Doga instructor Suzette Ackermann.
	MILITARY strength protection. An iPad has survived a 100,000ft drop from space due to a $4.95 protective case made by US company G-Form. The drop, was part of a marketing push from the company for the case, which it says is made using military grade ballistic fabric. The 2 minute and 20 second clip shows the iPad encased in GShock’s protective case, mounted with a camera to a high-altitude weather balloon and set free to climb into space. After a while floating in space the balloon bursts sending the iPad, camera and case back down to land in one piece on rocky patch of the Nevada desert. To watch the video go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4xNcF6T7Is
	COSTLY mistake. An impatient motorist in the Chinese city of Wuhun narrowly avoided injury to himself and pedestrians after taking a “short cut” down pedestrian stairs. “I thought it might be a quick way out of the traffic jam,” he told media. The man however now faces a $2,000 fine rom police.
	FAST food is bad for you. The list of reasons not to eat fast food just got longer with the revelation that it may cause zebra attacks, particularly when eating potato chips. The warning comes after one unwitting chip snacker left her window open whilst driving through a wildlife safari park in Texas. The draw of salty potato goodness simply proved too much for one zebra who leaned in the woman’s car to score some chips, and ended up actually accidentally biting the woman’s shoulder. Fortunately for the woman, the bite was not serious, but it will cause her to reconsider her food options in the future.
	BEWARE health risks of the morning commute. Authorities in Indonesia have come up with an unusual solution to stop the thousands of “train surfers” who travel on top of commuter trains everyday to avoid crowded carriages or simply to avoid paying the fare. The “last resort” solution involves suspending grapefruit sized concrete balls over railway lines, which for someone who does not duck quickly enough could cause some serious damage.
	BODY art. Recently 200 ‘body artists’ gathered together in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas to show off their work, some of which has required surgical intervention. Turning local heads, the artists strutted the streets sporting full body tattoos, multiple piercings and ‘stretches’, skin implants such as horns, and dental work including sharpened ‘vampire teeth’.
	BODY art? A hospital in the Croatian town of Sibenik has created an unusual “art work” made out of objects removed from patients bodies over he past 80 years. The framed objects are each contained in their own mounted display box, and include things such as needles, animal bones, coins and even a communist red star.
	NO jaws of life required. Two Swiss painters have escaped a horror smash without a scratch, in what some are calling a miracle escape. The pair, teenage decorator Vanessa Kastner, and her 28-year old boss, Admir Kaiser, were travelling in a van when it was struck suddenly by a tram. The van was dragged by the tram for 50 metres before being crushed against an electricity pylon. “When we crawled out and I saw hat was left of the van I couldn’t believe that we’d survived,” said Kastner. The accident may have been caused when Kaiser hit the accelerator into the trams path instead of the brakes.
	WATER monsters are real? A cameraman is claiming to have captured proof of the existence of the legendary Icelandic lake serpent Lagarfljót’s Worm, whilst filming at its supposed place of residence, the river Jökuls´ í Fljótsdal, in east Iceland. In parts of Northern Europe, the worm is held in the same kind of esteem as the Loch Ness Monster, and is mentioned in Icelandic legends as far back as 1345. Unfortunately for the cameraman, according to legend, sightings of the serpent are usually a bad omen.
	EAT yourself thin. A unique new “weight loss” product has hit the world market this year, promising to help users tone up whilst eating, titled the ‘Eat Fit Cutlery’ set. The kit includes a chrome knife and fork, each fitted with a 1kg dumbell, as well as a spoon featuring a 2kg dumbell. “This cutlery and dumbbell mix is designed for fitness fans with a sense of humour,” said a Firebox brand spokesperson.
	SURE way to raise blood pressure. Sometimes it pays just to sit in traffic even if it does raise your blood pressure and give you a headache, as one Porsche owner in the US discovered recently. The driver, sick of waiting in thick traffic, decided to take matters into his own hands, and spotting an empty lane with workmen in it, drove straight into it. The man, however did not give thought as to the reason why the lane was empty, or why there were workers in it. He soon found out the answers to the unasked questions when his Porsche 311 began to sink into the newly laid wet tarmac. It took workmen an hour to shovel the tarmac away from the car’s wheels, whilst those that the impatient driver thought to overtake and cut in on, simply drove on by.
	MIRACLE survival. A driver and her passengers have beat the odds and survived a 40ft fall from an unfinished bridge in China’s Fujian province. The partially completed bridge ends mid air and had no safety barriers or warning signs to alert motorists of the potential dangers of driving across it. The woman and her passengers plunged 40ft after reaching the end of the bridge, but shocked onlookers when they walked away with little more than scratches. “I kept thinking the car would stop but it sailed straight off the edge,” an onlooker told local media. “They were very lucky to get out alive,” the onlooker added.
	MULTIPLE births. One exhausted Tibetan mastiff, Black Pearl, has made her owner very rich, after giving birth to a whopping litter of 22 pups. The Tibetan mastiff is one of the world’s most expensive dogs, each fetching around $150,000, however this price can fluctuate to as much as $2m (which was the price paid recently for a prized specimen in China). Black Pearl’s owner, Guo Qingcai, conveniently happens to be a pet store operator, and said his beloved pooch was given to him three years ago by a generous friend. “We have always treated her like our own child and given her nothing but the best,” he said. Guo and his wife are now furiously working around the clock to help Black Pearl care for her brood, taking turns hand feeding the pups with warm milk. Speaking to media about the large litter, Su Zhanqiang, of Xinjiang Agricultural University, said the breed usually give birth to four to five pups, and that it was very rare for them to have more than seven or eight.
	BEING 29 Feb, today is the traditional day when ladies can propose marriage to their boyfriends – and a UK restaurant chain is hoping they will want to “say it with steak”. The Beefeater Grill is offering a 7 oz Rump Steak branded with the words “Will You Marry Me” (as pictured below) – but it has to be ordered today. A spokesperson for Beefeater said the move was quite logical, given that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”.
	TORNADO has a sense of humour. A tornado in Missouri has narrowly avoided a Ripley’s Believe it or Not exhibit designed to look like a home which was hit by a tornado in 1812. The tornado came within 40ft of the building. “I’d say that mighty tornader seen the Ripley’s building and figured it was already fallin’ apart so there’s no use in hitting it,” said Missouri local Jake Stillworth.
	A HEALTHIER use for fast food. A McDonald’s Chicken McNugget which resembles George Washington, has sold on eBay for US$5,000. The nugget’s owner, Rebecca Speight, obtained it when she bought a box of McNuggets for her children at McDonald’s three years ago. According to Speight, she noticed George Washington in chicken flesh form after her children had finished their meal and left a few strays. Rather than bin McNugget Washington, Speight decided to pop him in the freezer for a rainy day. The rainy day came when Speight decided to sell the nugget to help 50 children attend a camp. Initially eBay took down the auction, because it violated the site’s rules on expired foods, but later reneged, saying it was “willing to make exceptions to help” Speight’s cause.
	LANOLIN has many uses. A mysterious knitter, affectionately known as the ‘Saltburn Yarnbomber’ has spread lanolin love all over a North Yorkshire town, with a 50 metre long knitted scarf, which features 3D knitted Olympic scenes. The display was arranged under the cover of darkness, at the Victorian pier in Saltburn, and attached to its railings. Little woollen Olympians featured at intervals across the scarf include synchronised swimmers, and gymnasts, as well as cyclists. This is not the first time the town’s ‘Yarnbomber’ has struck, with the mystery knitter having previously installed woolen figures buildings and lampposts with woollen creations, always striking at night, with no witnesses. Part of the Yarnbomber’s Olympic creation is pictured below.
	REACHING the top. The world’s tallest living man, Sultan Kosen, has finally stopped growing after treatment with a new drug. Kosen, who suffers from acromegaly (a condition triggered by a tumour in the pituitary gland), stands at 8-feet and 3- inches tall, decided to halt his growth in May 2010 using a new medication administered at the University of Virginia Medical Centre. The new medication is designed to control the production of growth hormones. And it seems, after two years the medication has finally paid off, with Kosen’s doctors confirming that as of three months ago, he has stopped growing “I’m most pleased that we were able to help Sultan,” said one of Kosen’s doctors, Jason Sheehan. “If he had continued to grow, it would have been life-threatening,” he added.
	SERIOUS addiction. One Belgian bus driver, Issac Fremont, took his love of coffee to all new heights, installing not one, but two coffee machines into the dash of his bus. Fremont’s stash was discovered after he was stopped during a routine check in Switzerland. The wired bus driver told police officers that the reason he had the coffee machines was that he didn’t like the coffee served up at service stations. Unfortunately for the coffee connoisseur, Swiss police said that his coffee machines, along with various other knick-knacks breached traffic rules. “The two coffee machines plus all the other stuff that he had mounted in front of the windscreen (pictured below) made it almost impossible to get a proper view of what he was seeing as he drove along,” said one officer. “It was a serious obstruction of his field of view,” the officer said.
	HERBAL nutrition? A “cannabis club” in New Zealand which calls itself The Daktory Club, has installed a marijuana dispensing machine in West Auckland, to avoid its members being charged with drug dealing. The machine, titled Herbal Nutrition Centre, sells one-gram serves of the drug for around AU$15.
	ENABLING obesity. Fur parents will soon be able to order their beloved animals a chair lift to save them the effort of walking up and down pesky house stairs. Titled ‘The Stair of the Dog’, the lift features a basket which rotund dogs and cats can sit in as they ascend or descend the stairs. The lift also features an electronic platform which can be activated by a paw recognition button.
	BIKER until the end. Motorcyclists in Germany can now ride to their final resting place, with the launch of a new sidecar hearse funeral service. The man behind the bike is motorcycle enthusiast Joerg Grossmann, who told reporters that he expects to attract around 1000 ‘clients’ a year. His first prototype saw a hearse cart fitted to a Kawasaki motorbike, however Grossmann said that 10 Harley hearses are now under construction, and will be ready by the end of the year.
	TECHNOLOGY goes backwards. The humble corkscrew has been honed over the centuries to a small, compact device which simply opens a bottle of wine. One inventor, Rob Higgs, however had other ideas, taking his love of yesteryear creations, and crafting a 10-foot tall “steampunk corkscrew”. Weighing in at half a tonne, the antique looking corkscrew starts via a hand-operated crank, and uses two cannon balls, a clock spring and a steam engine governor to then pour out the wine into a glass. The original machine was made using 300 pieces of metal Higgs got from scrapyards and dumps. The machine however caught the eye of a design company which then commissioned Higgs to create 25 of the machines out of brass. The brass machines are now selling for around $151,000 each.
	GOOD things come in small packages. A female dachshund-cross called Beyonce is in the running to becoming the smallest puppy ever born. The petite pooch was born at an animal shelter in El Dorado County in the US recently, after her pregnant mother was picked up by animal control officers. Mini Beyonce was born shortly after her mother’s arrival at the shelter, and when she arrived in this world she could fit her whole self onto a spoon. According to reports the little girl was born without a heartbeat, but a dedicated team of animal shelter vets managed to revive her using chest compressions and mouth to mouth resuscitation.
	SURVIVAL instinct. An aged German cat, Poldi, has survived the odds living in a forest for 16 years after having gotten himself lost. Poldi went for a gentle stroll from his owners Munich-based home in 1996, and was never seen again. His grieved owner gave him up for dead long ago, supposing some misfortune had befallen the orange tabby cat. Like another famous orange cat, Garfield, Poldi managed to land on his feet, setting himself up in a forest 32kms from where he wandered off. He was found 16 years later by a group of hikers who took pity on the affectionate tabby, and carried him to a local animal welfare shelter where a tattoo on his ear enabled him to be traced back to his overjoyed owner. According to reports, since returning home Poldi has managed to settle back into civilisation as if he never left, enjoying attention from his owner, sleeping, regular meals and sunning himself.
	BEWARE coldsores. An edible elevator artwork is raising the eyebrows of office workers at Engine on London’s Great Portland Street. The artwork, titled Jaffa Cakes, was inspired by Willy Wonka, and covers the inside of a lift with wall paper upon which is a tasty graphic of Jaffa Cakes. The work took a team of artists and food technicians a month to create, and allows workers riding in the lift to lick the Jaffa Cakes and taste their sweet flavour. “We are all about bringing a bit more fun to life and this was the perfect way to get a little joy straight to stressed out office workers,” said the money behind the artwork, McVitie’s Jaffa Cakes’, Philippa Tilley.
	LUCKY escape. A 25-year old man has walked away from a car smash which could have ended in tragedy, after his car careened through a bridge barricade. Andreas Rothstein and his passenger smashed through the barrier near the Swiss town of Urdorf in Zurich, but instead of falling 20 feet to their deaths, the car wedged itself dangling nose down over the road below. Passersby were then able to hold onto the car whilst the pair scrambled to the back of the car and escaped through a window. “They had a very lucky escape – it could have fallen over at any time,” said one rescuer.
	SHE may need glasses. An American woman has law authorities scratching their heads in consternation after she managed to run her car into a telegraph pole whilst driving in the desert. The woman, despite being surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of open desert in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, managed to ram head-long into a 20-foot pole, the force of which snapped it. Fortunately the woman was not injured in the accident, however her car, and the pole will need serious repairs.
	TRAVELLING with the speed of wind. One Chinese farmer has harnessed the speed of wind for his newest invention, an electric wind powered car. Featuring batteries and electric generators, the car took Tang Zhengping just three months to build, and can reportedly reach speeds of 140km/hr. The car also features a fan in the front and two solar energy wings top support the generation of power to the vehicle. “It goes at a maximum speed of 140 kilometers per hour and lasts longer than a normal electric car, which usually doesn’t have generators,” Tang said. “It has two sets of generators and batteries so one is charging while the other is working,” he added.
	HE may need some Ginkgo Biloba. A 26-year old motorist had a rather large case of absentmindedness this week, after mistaking the steps of a Paris metro station for an underground carpark. The man drove onto the footpath and down the first few station steps, but managed to brake just before his back tyres left the pavement. “There’s a sign saying ‘Haussmann Parking’ right in front… I made a mistake,” the driver sheepishly told media. Fortunately no one was hurt during the incident, with the only injury sustained being a blow to the driver’s pride.
	WOULD you like a side of obesity with your pizza? Pizza hut has health authorities across the world cringing with the release of its newest pizza, the Crown Crust Burger. Available only in the Middle East, the Crown Crust pizza is beef, lettuce, tomato and cheese topped, and its piste de résistance is a dozen “cheeseburgers” which line it, embedded in its crust. Advertisements for the Crown Crust call it the “most royal” pizza, and encourage diners to “relish a first of its kind deliciousness”.
	STOP the spread of zombies. Pharmacy students at the US University of Rhode island have led a public appeal to stop the spread of zombies. The brave students went as far as opening a “clinic” on campus to dispense zombie medications, Zombivir and Gummivir, (sour patch and gummy bears lollies). Whilst the clinic was a lighthearted way to spend a day, the day of the dead had a more serious purpose, to educate the students on infectious diseases and how to respond to them. Associate Professor Jeffrey Bratberg led the day, and told journalists that “We are running a mock point of dispensing operation, which is the standard in response to outbreaks of small pox, flu or anthrax. “The focus of his public health class is to teach pharmacy students how to recognize infectious disease outbreaks, how they spread among populations, what the symptoms look like and where in the world they develop. “And as everyone knows, if you can get treatment within 24 hours of a bite from a zombie, you won’t come down with the symptoms,” he added.


	DIGESTIVE art. An installation artwork by Belgium artist, Wim Delvoye, titled Cloaca Professional, 2010, is gaining notoriety worldwide following its debut at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art. Dubbed the “Poo Machine” the installation is designed to mimic the human digestive system and involves a line of glass jars which are “fed” twice a day. Once inside the jar, the food is ground up naturally, similar to the action of the digestive system, and exits through the bottom of the receptacle at 2pm everyday. The process by which the food is ground and digested, also gives the material an unpleasant smell when it exits the jar.
	ALCOHOL and driving don’t mix. A truck packed to the brim with beer wreaked havoc on Polish traffic when its load spilled out over a busy roundabout. The truck driver caused the debacle after trying to turn in the roundabout too quickly. The resulting traffic chaos caused the closure of the whole road, and left firefighters with the five hour job of picking up bottles and hosing away beer.
	CAN anyone say cholesterol? British chef, Tristan Welch, has created the world’s “meatiest” sandwich. Crafted from 41 cuts of meat, a smattering of salad, cheese and gherkins, the mammoth sandwich took four painstaking hours to create, and a reported 10 hours to consume. Looking at the breakdown of flesh layered between the bread, the sandwich contained 1,445 grams of ham, two kilograms of salami, turkey and bacon, as well as one kilogram of sausages and 720 grams of chorizo. The meat extravaganza was created to help promote the launch of the Man vs Food program on the UK’s Food Network TV station. Now on Welch’s menu, the sandwich has been described by Food Network TV station’s, Nick Thorogood, as “an epic creation”. “We expect only the very brave will take on the challenge and attempt to eat it,” he added.
	KEEPING warm this winter. If you don’t want to try garlic, Vitamin C or echinacea, you could always write to knitting fanatic Sheila Carter and ask her to knit you a full body jumpsuit. It won’t be the most difficult thing she’s ever created- that would have to be a tribute to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Taking around 500 hours, 4,500 feet of wool in 30 shades and 1.8 million stitches, the Diamond Jubilee flotilla includes a replica of the Tower Bridge, as well as Her Majesty, the Duke of Edinburgh and onlookers.
	CYBERSPACE leads to love. It seems to be a sign of the ever increasingly technologically advanced times, when a British couple, Marie and Jay Coulbeck, chose to get engaged online during a game, before having ever met. The duo’s avatars Goddess of the Orient and Gunner reportedly hit it off instantly in the online chat room IMVU, and an internet romance was born. The pair got engaged in the game months later, and it was only after a ring was exchanged online that they anxiously decided to swap photos. Their worry came from the fact that their avatars did not entirely match their real world incarnations, however sighting photos did not dim their love, with the each saying that the other was their absolute dream. “We actually think the game is a bit silly now, but thank God we both joined or we would never have found each other,” Jay said.
	NOT your average contact lens. Hollywood special effects whiz, Kevin Carter, has released a range of unusual contact lenses for those seeking something a little different. Almost as good as change of hair colour, or a holiday, the coloured contact lenses each take Carter two days to dye, and are made up of 55% water with a fixed clear centre which allows their wearers to see. The lenses however do not come cheap, at around $600 a pair, but they can make wearers look literally out of this world.
	HOLY alcohol? A strange new sweet treat has hit the market, from the makers of human breast milk icecream, called Vice Lolly. The lollypop is green, shaped like a gun, and is 80% made from the super strength alcohol, absinthe, mixed with three parts holy water from Lourdes. The lollypop costs around $30 a piece from The Icecreamists in London’s Covent Garden. “I have a source in France that bought the holy water for me in plastic bottles,” said Vice Lolly creator, Matt O’Connor. “After it was shipped over I spent a lot of time tasting it with absinthe and sugar to get the taste and balance just right. “It tastes alcoholic with a touch of sweetness. “After about three of these the average drinker would certainly be feeling the effects,” he said.
	EXPERIMENT on the run? Locals in China’s Henan Province were convinced that an experiment from a nearby medical lab had escaped when they spotted the creature pictured below wandering the streets. Authorities called in to investigate however, discovered that the animal was in fact a very rare and very expensive breed of dog, which they say must have run away from home.

	THE dangers of drugs. A 21-year old female is red faced and reconsidering her supposedly harmless hash smoking ways, after she had to be rescued from a 40-ft pylon, which she climbed thinking it was a bridge. The woman thought the pylon was a bridge over the Morava River, and climbed it after smoking marijuana, wearing just denim shorts, a t-shirt and thongs. Worried locals called the police when they saw the woman at the top of the pylon, and after two hours of trying, authorities managed to convince her to come down.
	WORRIED about a pimple, cellulite or wrinkles? Think you’ve got problems?- at least you are not Mugly! Mugly is a Chinese Crested canine who has just been crowned the world’s ugliest dog. Sporting beady eyes, wayward whiskers and a protruding jaw Mugly’s loving owner described him as a “beautiful dog both inside and out”.
	GOT some spare toilet paper? A US woman, Susan Brennan, who created a wedding dress from ten rolls of jumbo toilet paper has won around $2,000 for her efforts. Brennan told reporters that it took her just one week to craft the elegant gown for the toilet paper dress competition run by Cheap-Chic-Weddings.com which stipulated entrants use only toilet paper, tape, glue, and/or needle and thread to craft the bridal pieces.
	DESERT survival. If your car ever breaks down in a desert, you could always take some survival tips from Emile Leray, a retired electrician. Leray was facing a grim future after crashing his car whilst driving across the Moroccan desert, but managed to survive the ordeal by building himself a motorbike out of parts from his crashed car.
	WHEN a healthy fear of heights may be appropriate. A 70-year old man caused quite a stir in the Chinese province of Anhui after he was spotted cooling off on top of an 18-storey building. The man climbed onto the roof of the 18-storey apartment where he lived, and perched himself right on its tiled edge in order to escape the searing heat, and to enjoy the cool breeze. His stunt however alarmed locals who informed authorities. Shortly after he settled into his spot, the man was “rescued” by anxious firefighters who crawled onto the roof, tied a rope to his waist and pulled him to safety.
	ALIENS look like jelly fish. A top astrophysicist, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, has slammed Hollywood’s portrayal of humanoid-looking aliens, saying that they most likely look like jelly-fish. Expressing her opinions on a program which aired on British television Dr Aderin-Pocock said that aliens most likely have metallic surfaces for absorbing light, orange undercarriages for camouflage and onion-like buoyancy sacks. She also told interviewers that there is most likely four alien civilisations in space, but that due to the size of the galaxy humans are unlikely to ever make contact.
	YOUR daily dose of cute. A baby sloth’s life has been saved by a two-year old girl and her big fluffy teddy bear. The infant sloth, Sjakie, was born in a zoo in the Netherlands, but within days of its arrival the youngster was wasting away and knocking on death’s door, because its mother was unable to produce enough milk. Desperate to save Sjakie zookeepers tried everything to get the youngster to take nutrients from their syringe, but to no avail. “Baby sloths need to cuddle, especially when they nurse,” said Sjakie’s keeper, Boudewijn Stenbreker. “We knew it needed to take milk from a syringe but without mum there it was not interested,” Stenbreker added. The keepers tried using stuffed toys from the zoo’s gift shop, but Sjakie was not interested, and it was looking pretty grim for the baby sloth, until Stenbreker’s two-year old daughter Lieke volunteered her favourite teddy for the job. Together the keepers decided to give the pre-loved teddy a go, and Sjakie was soon cuddling the bear and taking food. “Lieke was delighted,” Stenbreker said.
	GETTING fit for the wedding. Women getting in shape for their upcoming nuptials took on a whole new meaning for a group of 100 budding brides in Belgrade who recently competed to win an all expenses paid wedding. The competition involved the 100 competitors donning wedding gowns and running shoes and racing 150 metres, with the winner taking all. Some soon-to-be brides tried to increase their chances of winning by selecting short bridal dresses and donning aerodynamic shoes, whilst others embraced longer fuller dresses for the occasion. The winner, Sanja Cigoj, completed the 150 metre dash in just 19 seconds.
	A DOCUMENTARY film maker and shark expert, Jim Abernethy, has found out the hard way that nature does not respect personal property no matter what its price tag is, after a shark made off with his $15,000 camera. Abernethy was in the midst of making a doco on marine life in the tropical waters of the Bahamas and had placed a series of video cameras on the ocean floor to capture the action, when the theft occurred. Footage of the theft was captured by one of the doco’s camera operators, who was swimming around getting footage and happened to spot a tiger shark, nicknamed Emma (pictured below), dislodging the $15,000 camera and take off with it.
	NOT one for acrophobics. A restaurant currently under construction in Austria is sending a cold shiver down the spines of those who fear heights, with its location nestled a cool 3,440 metres (10,000-feet) up in the Wildspitze Mountain, on top of the Pitztal glacier. Costing a mere $29.5 million, the restaurant, aptly named 3440, is set to open its doors towards the end of the year, and will be linked to a new ski-lift which will deliver skiers to its tables. Despite its lofty heights, the restaurant is promising to keep its prices down to earth.
	SUN protection? A Swiss soccer player, Rafi Bohl, has learned the hard way that slip, slop, slap is the sensible thing to do when it comes to sun exposure. In a moment of what can only be thought of as misguided devotion, Bohl decided to gaffer tape his player number onto his chest and sit out in the sun without a shirt or sunscreen all day. After a day of this exposure Bohl had essentially reverse branded the number onto his chest, and was left lobster pink and hardly able to sit for days afterwards.
	IS that an arachnid in your ear? It is the stuff nightmares are made of, but for one woman, Ms Lee, nightmares became a reality when doctors found a spider had set up shop inside her ear. It is believed that the arachnid may have entered Lee’s ear five days before its discovery as she slept. Lee took herself to the doctor after five days of “ear irritation”, and was shocked to learn that rather than a scratch, an infection or a mite, the cause was a an eight legged, two fanged spider. Initially plans were to remove the spider using tweezers, however this plan was ditched as her medical team did not want to risk the arachnid biting Lee, burrowing further down in her ear canal, or digging its leg barbs into her skin. Instead the team used a saline solution to flush the unwanted squatter out. Fortunately for Lee the operation went well, and she walked away from the ordeal with a rather disturbing tale to tell. Doctors posit that the spider crawled into Lee’s ear because it was warm, moist, sheltered and dark.
	SWIMMING in the sky. No one would have thought you would be at risk of getting acrophobia whilst in a pool, but the Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao is challenging that notion, with its newest glass bottom pool. Perched on the 24th floor, and jutting out of the side of the hotel, the glass bottomed pool gives swimmers a birds eye view of the landscape below them. The pool has been met with a general positive consensus, with one guest telling media that “I felt as if I was flying in the sky – I could also enjoy the beautiful scenery of Pudong from here.”
	SPOT the difference. A Dalmatian dog has gone against its hunting instincts and adopted a baby goat after it was rejected by its own mother. The situation is made stranger by the fact that the duo actually resemble each other, with the baby goat covered in Dalmatian-like speckles. Following its adoption, the goat now happily follows the dog around and even goes to sleep with its ‘mother’ inside the dog kennel.
	AN issue of comfort. A group of protesters at Adelaide’s Henley Beach took to the toilet to protest the beach’s lack of loos. The unusual protest, titled The Coalition of the Constipated, saw 12 protesters in black suits and bowler hats carry their own toilets and newspapers down to Henley Beach, before dropping their pants and sitting down for the long haul.
	GET your heart working. Two Canadian kayakers had an extra heart workout, when a huge humpback whale chose the spot in-between their kayaks to breach. The mother and daughter duo, Rhonda and Samantha Burmeister, had paused for a moment to admire a swarm of seagulls who were diving for bait fish in the water nearby their kayaks, whilst paddling off Avila Beach in California. The encounter was captured on camera by Rhonda who was in the midst of filming the birds when the whale surfaced for the first time, very very close to Samantha. The whale then disappeared only to breach closer to Rhonda. Speaking to media about the encounter Rhonda said “I wasn’t expecting it”. “Oh my gosh, I was almost taken by this beautiful thing, and it would’ve been worth it, it would’ve been worth it,” she added. Unfortunately a pair of kayakers behind Rhonda were not so lucky, with the whale’s breach over-tipping their kayaks and dumping them in the water.
	OLD is becomes young again. A 27-year old French photographer, Leo Caillard, has enlisted the assistance of the iconic Louvre museum to modernise ancient works of art. Caillard took photos of the Louvre’s most famous statues, and then used his friends as exact replicas of the statues, dressed them as modern hipsters and photographed them, before morphing both the original statue picture and the hipster portrait into a single shot using photoshop. Caillard told reporters that he felt the statues’ sense of arrogance made them the perfect fashion models.
	ROMANTIC? A love-struck man, Hu Seng, from Chongqing city in China, found himself breathless in the quest for romance, after a gift to his girlfriend got lost in the post. Hu had arranged for a courier to pick up the gift box, which contained himself and a soft toy, and deliver it to his girlfriend’s office 30 minutes away. Unfortunately the courier got lost along the route, and the 30 minute drive turned into three hours. To make matters worse, the box did not have enough oxygen for the three hour drive and when it finally arrived at the office, Hu was in dire straits. A friend of his girlfriend, who was in on the ‘gift’ was standing by to record the lady’s surprise, but instead captured the moment when they discovered Hu was passed out, and had to be revived by paramedics. “I didn’t realise it would take so long,” he said. “ I tried to make a hole in the cardboard but it was too thick and I didn’t want to spoil the surprise by shouting,” he added.
	WATER is no barrier. An adventurous wheel-chair bound artist, Sue Austin, is celebrating the Cultural Olympiad by staging a series of underwater scuba performances. For the series, titled Creating the Spectacle, Austin helped to create a self propelled underwater wheelchair. The wheelchair comes complete with swimming floats, two fins and a foot controlled propulsion. “I’m thrilled that lots of people have been inspired by the project already, many of them telling me how seeing the wheelchair underwater has made them want to try it too,” she said. “We’ve created something new and exciting and it’s really getting people talking,” she added.
	ALCOHOL dulls logical brain. A 26-year old German man, Sebastian Beyer, has found himself in hot water after a drunken night out led him to create his own artwork at the Kunsthalle Art Museum. Beyer had spent the night partying with friends and at 6am decided he was okay to drive and hopped into his dad’s Mercedes Benz- that was his first mistake. The second mistake came when Bayer decided to take a shortcut through the nearby Kunsthalle Art Museum instead of waiting at a red light, and then proceeded to smash through a fence. His third mistake came when, once inside the Museum’s grounds, he decided to create his own artwork by driving his father’s car into the Museum’s pond. Only after crawling onto the car roof to admire his work did he realise he may be in trouble, before he slipped into the pond and hot footed it to the nearest bus stop. Police say they managed to catch him shortly after, as he was the only sopping wet commuter at the stop.
	BEWARE of mice. Commuters using London’s Underground tube have been warned to beware of mice attacks. The sign, which was photographed by tube users, read:“Pay Attention. The mice at this station have been attacking customers. Please place the bottom of your trousers into your socks to avoid being a victim of the Farringdon mice”. Several passengers contacted transport authorities to find out how much danger the mice posed, only to be told that the signs were in fact the result of a very elaborate joke.
	MUST have taken his vitamins. A freestyle soccer champion, Andrew Henderson, has taken his sporting prowess to even higher levels, having scored the highest ever goal at England’s Wembley Stadium. To achieve his feat, Henderson was attached to a 200 metre long zip wire 30 metres in the air, travelling at 40kms/hr, as he controlled the soccer ball, positioned it and kicked it into the goal on his second attempt. “This was definitely the most extreme freestyling I’ve ever done – it was so fast, with an incredible view of the pitch,” Henderson told reporters. “It wasn’t easy trying to score but I managed to build up my confidence each time I went down the wire. “Scoring a goal at Wembley while shooting across the pitch 30 metres in the air is the ultimate thrill,” he added.
	AFRAID of heights? If so, visiting or living in the Yushan village in Hefeng County, Hubei Province, China, is totally off the cards for you, with the only access to the village being a rope between two sheer cliffs. Dubbed as the world’s most isolated village, the community of 200 installed the ropeway 15 years ago, before which they had to walk several days to reach other townships to trade goods. The ropeway is 1,000 metres long, powered by a diesel engine, and 400 metres above ground. The brave soul who maintains the ropeway, Zhang Xinjian, was the only volunteer for the job.
	DEATH and taxes. Last week zombies converged on the US Democratic Convention to announce their candidate for presidency, Mr A Zombie. Backed up by his first lady, Patty Morgan-Zombie, Mr Zombie pledged to “highlight the plight of the zombie community”. Speaking to media about the presidential race, Patty Zombie said “My husband is running for president, because he could have taken a certain issue lying down, well, because he was already lying down, but he decided to stand up and pledge to fight for equal viewing opportunities for all”. The zombie campaign is actually part of a stunt to get the series The Walking Dead reinstated on the Dish Network after the network dumped the popular zombie television show due to contractual disputes.
	MOVE over Fido here comes Robodog. The days of battlefield dogs could be numbererd after the US military revealed its newly created robotic dog. The not so catchy-named Legged Squad Support System is designed to follow soldiers into the roughest terrain, carry up to 180kgs and walk for 32kms without needing to refuel. The dog was developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the US Marine Corps. The “dog” does not need a driver, because it automatically follows a leader using computer vision or travels to designated locations using sensing and GPS, and there are now plans to make the dog talk. “We want a radio operator to be able to tell it to ‘sit, stay’,” said Lt Col Joe Hitt, of the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. “Likewise, the robot could tell them, ‘I’m stuck, wait’,” he added.
	MIA in space. A tiny space explorer, Mojo Man, has gone missing in the line of duty, however his would-be rescuer has high hopes for his recovery. One may be forgiven for thinking that getting lost in the stratosphere in -55C temperatures was a sure death sentence, but Mojo Man should be okay- as the 10-inch tall astronaut is made from super-tough ABS plastic. Dressed in an alimunium foil suit, replete with a plastic helmet, Mojo Man was sent up into the stratosphere with the express purpose of capturing images 110,000-feet above the earth. To undertake his mission the brave explorer was mounted on a CD of The Planets Suite by Gustav Holst, which was itself attached to electronic equipment and a hi-tech mini camera. “The project worked perfectly and we captured 2.5 hours of high definition video of the flight from launch to landing,” said mission commander Shaun Whitehead . “The rest of the equipment eventually landed but sadly there was no sign of the astronaut. “We’ve looked at the video and think he was knocked off his perch when the balloon burst and fell somewhere around Leicester”.
	WOULD you pay for an accident? An American man, known only as Jim, is trying to sell his 1968 Cessna 172 H on the bidding website Craigslist despite having recently landed it upside down. Jim wants US$10,000 for the plane, and describes the accident as akin to “a bad hair day”.
	DOG rescue. An Alaskan malamute has become the newest firefighter in China, and is undergoing rigorous special mission training to equip him to participate in rescue missions under extreme conditions. As part of his training the pioneering pup is learning to walk over two 10m long tightwalk wires in 60 seconds. His training is being monitored by 10 other dogs, which trainers hope will soon join him in rescue missions.
	TREND alert! Watch out Botox, there’s a new trend in town, the ‘bagel head’. Yes you read that right, bagel head. The procedure is currently garnering a huge following in Japan, where people are queuing to have a “bagel” inserted in their forehead. The bagel is created by inserting chunky needle into the forehead then pumping the area with saline until it swells up like a round jam donut, before pressing a thumb into the centre of the swelling to create a bagel. The “beautifying” process takes two hours, with the bagel lasting 16-24 hours before the saline is absorbed into the body.
	NATURAL instincts? A giraffe named Mengmeng has avoided some large obstacles to move into her new home. Mengmeng spent 15 months in training at her old home at an Eastern Chinese zoo, learning how to duck her head to avoid obstacles in preparation for her move. The 15-year old giraffe was then loaded into a specially built truck, with her head and neck sticking out the top, to travel several kilometres to her new home. The trip took a whopping seven hours, but Mengmeng performed brilliantly, ducking each pylon, bridge and sign, and shocking more than a few drivers along the way!
	NATURAL miracle? Aussie expat living in London, Bernadette Cronin, is claiming to have bought a ‘miracle image’ loaf of bread at her local bakery in London. Now when most people claim miracle images there is usually religious iconography associated with it, such as the image of the Virgin Mary in a slice of toast, however Cronin’s bread was less lofty, instead being in the shape of her beloved homeland. “I was shocked,” Cronin said. “I just bought a normal looking loaf. “But after I sliced into it, there was my homeland staring right back at me,” she added. The bread (pictured below) has been heralded as a possible call to return back home, but Cronin is yet to comment on whether she will heed her loaf of bread’s advice.
	FIGHT or flight? A petite woman, Nishanto, has managed to engage her fight response and scare off a black bear which was casually attempting to enter her house. The scene was captured by an onlooker who video taped the bear strolling across Nishanto’s lawn before mounting the steps to her house. From behind the camera the onlooker yells ‘Nishanto – the bear’s back!’ which brings the irate home owner out to face off with the bear yelling ‘Get down right now! No! No! No! Down!’. The bear is startled by the onslaught and quickly backs itself down the stairs before taking off. Since being uploaded onto YouTube five days ago, the clip has scored more than 1.5 million hits, with some viewers leaving comments such as “That voice would scare me away too! That’s a mean mom voice. I’m glad Nishanto had the guts to stand up to this bear”.
	MIRACLE escape. A four year old boy and his mother have escaped a horror car crash unscathed, leaving rescuers shaking their heads and calling the duo “extraordinarily lucky”. The calamity began when the mother and child were driving through Oberengadin in Switzerland and were suddenly rammed by a 115kg stag. The stag’s impact threw the car out of control and into the path of an oncoming train. The mother then fought frantically to free her toddler from the car before the train struck but was too late, with the train hurling headlong into the car at full speed, throwing the mother clear of the car, whilst her child remained inside. Unbelievably however, the mother was able to pick herself up and run to the car, to find her son unscathed, but a little unsettled.
	THINK you’re tipping the scales? Spare a thought for Jumbo Jack. Jack, the King Charles spaniel has been named as Britain’s best pet slimmer, following an impressive 6.4kg weight loss. Dubbed Jumbo Jack, the tubby spaniel weighed in at 20.5kgs six months ago, and could barely walk. Fortunately Jumbo Jack was adopted by new owners who were committed to helping him regain his doggie freedom. The pooch was put on a strict diet and exercise regime, and managed to trim down to 14.1kgs, just 4.1kgs from his ideal body weight. “Today he is a different dog and we call him Jumping Jack instead of Jumbo Jack, as he jumps every time he barks,” his owners said.
	WHAT! It’s not a shrub? An elderly British couple has found themselves in a spot of trouble after discovering that their well loved shrub was in fact a large marijuana plant. The unwitting duo purchased their plant from a car boot at a flea market thinking it was an innocuous green plant, and then proceeded to tend to it carefully. Over the next year or so, the plant grew luxuriantly and ended up taking up a large space in their suburban garden. It is unknown how the police managed to find the plant, but the couple were reportedly shocked to discover its true nature. Soon after the “raid” the local police took to Twitter to post a photo of the plant (pictured below) saying “Seized today. Elderly couple bought shrub at car boot sale, tended carefully biggest cannabis plant we had seen!!”.
	SERIOUS dedication. A newlywed Welsh couple, Claire and Ceri Morgan, have demonstrated the meaning of love, after forfeiting their dream honeymoon to pay for their beloved pooch’s vet bills. The couple had saved for a long time to afford the $11,500 trip to Las Vegas and were looking forward to their post marriage adventure, when they discovered their American bulldog Teeto had cancer. Alarm bells had started to ring last year when Teeto began to walk with a limp, however it was not until recently, after the couple had watched a TV show about a dog whose symptoms were similar to those displayed by Teeto, that they realised his condition was serious. “We told the vet that it didn’t matter about the money, just do whatever it takes to make him better,” said Claire. “We can go on a honeymoon again when we’ve saved up but a dog is for life and we want Teeto around for a lot longer,” she added.
	WHAT do we need? More power! A British dad has created the world’s fastest pram, which is claimed to have a fairly unsafe top speed of 80km/h. Showing that you really shouldn’t leave your husband at home alone minding the baby, 33- year-old Colin Furze spent four weeks designing and making the speedy stroller, which is equipped with a 125cc motorbike engine. Controls, including the accelerator and hopefully some brakes, are fitted on the handlebars and the driver stands on two small wheeled platforms as pictured below. Fortunately Furze agrees that it’s too powerful to travel at top speed with his baby son. “It is really unstable when it goes at top speed and if you hit a rough bit in the road you are in danger of falling off, but so far I’ve managed not to crash.” He said he’s had lots of “envious looks” from other parents “especially when they are pushing their babies up hills.”
	ALL the better to see you with. The internet has exploded with theories about the origins of a giant eyeball which was found washed up on a Florida beach last week. Guesses ranged from extra terrestrial visitors to as-yet undiscovered deep sea creatures, and giant jellyfish. Experts from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have however dispelled the rumors this week, saying that after an examination based on its colour, size and structure, along with the presence of bone around it, that the eye originated from a swordfish. “Based on straight-line cuts visible around the eye, we believe it was removed by a fisherman and discarded,” a statement said “Genetic testing will be done to confirm the identification,” the statement added.
	TEST of strength. A phone booth in Sanya on southern China’s Hainan Island, is doing more than just connecting people, it is in fact helping callers build strong leg, core and arm muscles. The much-complained about phone booth, forces users to use their muscles whilst making a call due to its location, being built on the edge of a sea wall, meaning that users have to brace their legs and hold onto a bar in order to stay upright whilst chatting. According to reports, the phone booth’s location was selected to allow for maximum use of its road facing side for advertising.
	GOING green? Australian car owner, Tim, is selling what he deems as the ‘Ultimate Green Car’ on the online auction site eBay. When people say a product is ‘green’, eco-friendly usually comes to mind, but rather than being fuel conservative or carbon neutral, the car is instead covered in astro turf. The 1998 Mitsubishi Magna’s unusual decoration, according to Tim, came about to cover up a dodgy paint job. “It cost about $500 to do and a lot of work and glue went into it,” Tim said. “We went insane with the amount of glue and cutting we had to do but it worked out really well and everyone always smiles when they see the car,” he added.
	CLEAN floor crawl? A website BetterThanPants.com is offering parents a way to “teach your baby a strong work ethic early on in their life”, with a new infant outfit which doubles as a floor polisher. The tongue in cheek product combines a baby onesie with mop like fibres, which work to clean the floor as the child learns to crawl. The website jokes that with the product the child will “get a nice workout, burn off energy, and do muscle toning. And sleep better too”.
	STOCK up on deodorant. Pilots in China are facing a rather unusual interview process to get the job, with Hainan Airlines announcing it will be sniffing for body odour during recruitment tests. The company’s new zero-bodyodour requirement has caused some raised eyebrows in the airline community, but Hainan has defended its policy saying “our staff work very closely with the public, and no passenger wants to smell a pilot’s armpits”. “And if they can keep their cool in this test, they aren’t going to sweat in the cockpit,” the company added. The rudimentary test basically involves a recruitment ‘sniffer’ to take a deep whiff of applicants armpits to check for odour. Other key requirements for the job include: being able to fly a plane, 20/20 vision, a max height of 1.87 meters and a very good command of the English language. After leaving an interview, one would-be pilot told media “I passed everything, but I was doomed by my armpits, which are always a bit whiffy”.
	WOULD you like an extra serve of diabetes with that candy? A company in the US has created an eight-foot python made entirely out of gummy candy. The hand-made snake will set buyers back a cool $144 and packs around 151,200 kilojoules. Titled the Party Python, the candy comes in blue raspberry with green apple or red cherry flavours.
	BREAKFAST rabies anyone? An unwitting brekkie lover in Germany was left dumbfounded after he discovered the little something extra in his cereal box was not in fact a Halloween toy, but rather a real-life mummified bat. The man had just settled down for his morning bowl of cereal when he paused to inspect the ‘toy’ sitting in the centre of his tasty breakfast. Upon closer inspection and touch, the man came to the horrifying realisation that the bat was real, and leathery. The man immediately downed his spoon and contacted health authorities. The incident is currently under investigation to determine how the mammal entered the cereal. At present authorities are working from the premise that the doomed bat may have flown into the plastic packaging and suffocated to death, yet they are unsure whether this happened at the cereal factory.
	STATISTICS and odds: eat your heart out! A 91 year old American woman is counting her lucky stars after she won her second lottery. The win had odds of one in 5.7 trillion, and saw the pensioner score US$99,000 just three months after winning US$300,000. Incidentally the odds of her first win were one in 8.9 million and her second win, one in 646,000. According to reports, the very, very, very lucky woman is now planning on using her winnings to fund some travel. She also told reporters that it is a “pleasure” to help out each of her six children, as well as her 16 grandkids and 20 great grandchildren.
	IRRATIONAL love of Brian Adams? Well there’s a remedy for that, according to a Real Estate Agent currently selling the iconic building backdrop to Adams’ smash hit Everything I Do I Do It For You. The moss-covered ruin, Silk Mills in Somerset, Britain, is currently up for grabs, and for a mere $91,000 Adams’ aficionados can own their own slice of the pop icon’s musical history. Silk Mills helped Adam’s song sit at number one on the UK pop charts for a record breaking 16- weeks after the release of the blockbuster smash hit movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, for which it was the title track. The agency selling the property, Seddons, has said that so far it has been “inundated” with enquiries.
	AGE and gender are no barriers for a model. A 71-year old grandfather has single-handedly turned up the fortunes of his grand-daughter, after he agreed to model her new range of female clothing. The man, Liu Qianping, discovered his inner model as he was visiting his designer granddaughter Lyu Ting. The designer was just receiving a new box of her latest clothing when her grandpa popped over. As she was sorting through the clothing, Liu casually tried on one of the pieces. The clothing looked so good on Liu that Ting and her staff decided that he should be the face of their new range. Since enlisting her grandpa, sales for Ting’s clothing have gone up five fold, whilst traffic to her website is, according to the designer, “hundreds times more”. Speaking about his new career Liu said “I just want to do a little help to my granddaughter, and it didn’t hurt me at all”. “We were all very happy that day when they took the pictures. “Life is all about happiness, isn’t it?,” he added.
	A BREATH of fresh air? Residents in an apartment block in WenLing, China’s Zhejiang province, may find their lungs put under pollution pressure, after road authorities built a four lane highway around their residence. The apartment dwellers refused to give up their homes when the road was being built, saying “They didn’t offer us enough compensation to leave so we’re staying”. The highway is a gateway to a new railway station and will soon see thousands of cars use its tarmac every day. Instead of expressing concern over the highway, residents of the building have said that it is an “opportunity” and that they may open a drive-through to serve commuters.
	NATO scientist’s solo mission. Retired NATO scientist, Robin Lovelock, is about to see the fruits of four years of his labour, when he launches his 4-foot Snoopy Sloop on the first ever unmanned sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. Weighing in at a mere 13 kilos the boat was constructed in Lovelock’s games room from parts sourced from the internet and his home (including bathroom light cord) and cost a grand total of $680 to make. Powered by the wind and navigated by Lovelock via a solar powered computer and GPS, the boat will sail along the English Chanel, before making its way south around the Azores, to catch the trade winds in the Bahamas and then onto Plymouth, in the US state of Massachusetts.
	SCABS are pretty? A South African company is releasing a unique calendar for 2013, featuring zombie women. The calendar sees the attractive ‘zombies’ don swimsuits and pose lazily on the white sandy sunny shores of a South African beach, replete with rotting flesh and cataracted eyes. Whilst most fans of the genre have thrown their support behind the calendar, some have however criticised the location, saying it should have been shot in a post-apocalyptic style city not on a beach. “Instead of looking like they were victims of a zombie attack, it rather looks like they were all in the same car accident,” said one fan.
	ADRENALIN spike. Residents of the Polish town of Zegiestow were shocked to see a large lynx wandering about the town in broad daylight searching for a feed. The usually solitary big-cat had wandered down from its usual haunt high up in the local mountain range to forage for food, and was snapped wandering the streets during its search for a tasty treat. “The mountains around here are ideal for the lynx, but this is the first time we’ve had reports of one entering a human residential area so blatantly,” said National park ranger Andrzej Ksiazek. “It was a Friday afternoon and he doesn’t look the slightest bit put off by being so close to humans,” he added.
	PROOF finally! Officials in North Korea have confirmed the existence of unicorns. The news comes after a dig by archaeologists of the History Institute of the DPRK Academy of Social Sciences unearthed the “lair of the unicorn rode by King Tongmyong”. According to the Korean Central News Agency the lair was discovered 200 meters from the Yongmyong Temple in Moran Hill in Pyongyang City. “A rectangular rock carved with words ‘Unicorn Lair’ stands in front of the lair,” the Agency said. “The carved words are believed to date back to the period of Koryo Kingdom (918-1392),” the Agency added. In its report, the Agency was however careful that the dig only “reconfirmed” the existence of unicorns, not that they were a new discovery.
	HEY Fido, can I have a lift? An animal shelter in the New Zealand is taking behavioural training to the nth degree, training three of its shelter dogs to drive. The training is part of the shelter, Auckland SPCA’s, bid to prove to the public just how intelligent dogs can be, in the hopes of boosting adoption levels and saving the pups from being put down. The three pooches were put through their paces during an eight week driving course, which saw them engage in daily driving exercises. The exercises were designed to get the pups familiar with the mechanics of driving, and eventually led to the trio, Porter, Monty and Ginny, getting behind the wheel of an adapted Mini Cooper. Not a trio to do things by halves, the Mini was a manual, and the dogs are now able to steer, put the car in gear and accelerate. Up until now, the dogs have been on their L’s and as such have had to drive with a co-pilot, however the SPCA now plans to move the pooches to their P’s and have them drive solo.
	BAD life choices? A US man may be considering trying to exercise impulse control in the future, after having the election symbol of Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney tattooed on his face during the campaign. It appears Eric Hartsburg may have gotten a little too caught up in the whirlwind of media frenzy, political intrigue and celebrity appearances leading up to the latest US elections, agreeing to have the R logo tattooed prominently next to his right eye. Hartsburg has since told media that a Republican supporter paid him US$15,000 to have the symbol tattooed on his face and to keep it until the end of the election , and that he did it “to make politics fun”. However since Romney’s defeat by President Obama, Hartsburg has had second thoughts about the amusement of the tattoo, saying “now to me it represents not a losing campaign, but a sore losing campaign”.
	SHOULD have said no to seconds. A rotund prisoner has foiled his own escape plot by getting stuck in the hole he carved. Rafael Valadao was one of four inmates in on the plan, with the first escaping scott free, whilst Rafael, at 102kgs, found himself firmly plugging the hole after trying to follow suit. After several attempts to free himself, Rafael was forced to concede defeat and call for help.
	THE dangers of alcohol. A man has learned the hard way of the dangers of overindulging in alcohol over the festive season, after he found himself bound and gagged on a six hour flight from Iceland to New York. According to reports the furore began when the man decided it was a good idea to drink his entire quota of duty free alcohol in the first hour of the flight. Quickly moving through several stages of drunkenness from jolly to annoying, snarky and then angry, the man ended up trying to choke the unfortunate woman sitting next to him, and then screamed that the plane was about to crash, before spitting on several other passengers. It was during this very un-festive tirade that fellow passengers decided to quiet the man down using a roll of gaffa tape. They managed to secure him to his seat for the duration of the flight, leaving him to sleep it off before his arrest upon arrival in New York.
	NOT all models calorie control. A 2013 German calendar featuring men of all shapes posing in their underwear in front of aged cars has become an unexpected smash hit. Crafted by Janet Schurmeyer as an antidote to the usual influx of bikini-clad model calendars where ladies drape themselves over sports cars, the unusual calendar saw the models (most friends of Schurmeyer) pose in their most comfortable undies.
	DRUNK dogs? Well not quite, unless they can get drunk on flavour of a new ‘pooch hooch’, aptly titled Dawg Grog. The doggie beverage is the brainchild of Daniel Keeton who works at Bend’s Boneyard Brewery tasting room in the US state of Oregon. Keeton, a keen dog lover, decided to craft the Dawg Grog so that his dog Lola could also have her own beverage when he had a beer. Despite the name, the bevvie does not actually contain any alcohol, but is rather created using vegetable broth and spent grain. Thus far, Keeton has reported Dawg Grog has been a hit with Lola who often licks her bowl clean.
	A BIT run down? An American possum who met its maker following an unfortunate collision with a car has returned to the scene of the crime “feeling a bit run down”. The unusual joke, saw the possum taxidermied by an unknown source, then dressed in a cardigan, pants and a hat, and placed beside the road, under a sign that reads “I’m feeling a bit run down”. According to sources, the possum’s appearance has caused more than a few cars to slow down with motorists doing a double take.
	PROTECT and serve. German police dogs are set to get their own quartets of shoes to protect their paws. The paw shoes are made from velcro and keep glass and debris out of police dog paws. “This is not fashion frippery,” said Head dog handler Thomas Schulte. “Dogs’ paws are sensitive and easily damaged and they can cut themselves on broken glass and a bad cut can put a police dog out of action for six months while they recover,” he added. Despite the best intentions however, it seems not all police dogs enjoy having their paws enclosed, with Schulte saying that during the first stages of the pawwear trials the dogs would pull the shoes off with their teeth. “They need about two weeks to adapt,” he said.
	CLAUSTROPHOBIC? For those that dislike small confined spaces, perhaps the smallest house in Brussels may not be the place for you, but for everyone else, the house, on a street just off the central Grand Place square, is up for auction. A few hundred years old, the two-storey townhouse has had many incarnations in its lifetime, including a furniture workshop and a creperie, and measures a mere 2.75 metres wide.
	HAVING a coffin fit. Queenslanders in the town of Millaa Millaa are divided over a new attraction at the local cemetery, a coffin shaped toilet. Constructed by the Millaa Millaa Chamber of Commerce in revolt after they were quoted $80,000 to build a loo, the coffin facility has a cement foundation, septic systems, and sturdy walls. “You have to be careful, not everyone is going to have our macabre sense of humour,” said Chamber President Pat Reynolds. “We did it with good intentions,” he added. And he was right, with locals writing in droves to the local council to express their outrage. “Imagine if they had a funeral there,” said one angry letter writer, Brian Norton. “I don’t think it’s going to go over very well, especially if people are there from out of town,” he added.
	VISITORS to the coastline near New Zealand’s Nelson region have been bemused to see lots of what look suspiciously like breast implants washed up on the sand. They’re actually an unusual type of jellyfish (pictured below).
	THE owner of a seaside cafe in Norfolk, UK, has been forced to defend a special holiday offer called a Kidz Breakfast. The monster meal available at Jester’s Diner in Great Yarmouth includes 12 rashers of bacon, a dozen sausages and lots of eggs – plus lashings of baked beans and of course lots of toast. It’s not clear how the meal got its name, but some have quipped that at nearly 5kg it actually weighs about the same as a small child. The Kidz Breakfast (pictured below) is free if you eat it in an hour, or £15 if you fail. Since being added to the menu about 18 months ago only one person has managed to scoff the lot without having to pay – “competitive eater” Robert Pinto, who amazingly finished it off in less than 30 minutes. The cafe’s owner has defended the meal from accusations that it’s promoting unhealthy eating. “I’m just one guy with a few staff trying to get people to have a good time,” he said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime challenge,” he added. And as for eating superstar Pinto, he told reporters that he doesn’t even like breakfast. “I just did it for a laugh,” he said.
	PUSHING up daisies. Bratislav Stojanovic is redefining what it means to push up daisies, after taking up residence in a used grave. The Serbian man found himself homeless a few months ago after having racked up debts, and spent many nights battling the bitter cold on the streets before bunking down with the dead. “It is dry and it is warm,” he said. “I have some lamps and my personal possessions. “It isn’t a palace but it is more comfortable than the street,” he added. Surprisingly graveyard officials are not angling to get rid of their live squatter, saying “The family who owned the tomb are long gone so technically it belongs to no-one”. “If he behaves himself there are no plans to evict him,” they added.
	TASTE is an individual thing. In some cases taste can be as individual as a fingerprint, and in one particular instance that fingerprint got the taste for magnets, fridge magnets. A 12-month old Russian child recently underwent a procedure to remove a whopping 42 fridge magnets after developing a taste for the delicacy. “Over the years, I had to take a variety of foreign bodies including magnets from young patients,” said the child’s surgeon, Nikolay Rostovtsev. “Once I removed about 20 of them, but this incident of our little patient has broken all records,” he added.
	SUPER mossies. Laying awake at night listening to the shrill buzz of a tiny vampire as it advances and retreats, many may wonder whether mosquitoes do in fact have some form of dark super power. Well it now seems as if some do. Scientists researching Queensland’s Aeses aegypti subset species of mosquito have determined that they do in fact have a very unfortunate superpower, that of being the ability to adapt to insect repellent. The research, published in PLOS ONE, found that whilst the Aeses mozzie was at first repelled by N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide (DEET), after a mere three hours it was able to adapt to the smell and was able to return for a bite of dinner. The study, whilst nightmarish for those who think a quick spray and a citronella candle will protect them from the irritating buzzing which announces a mozzie’s arrival at a BBQ, has more worrying implications, being that the Aeses breed is known to be a major carrier of Dengue fever.
	HEART palpitations. A motorist in China got a good cardio workout when the ground under his car opened out into a 10-foot chasm. The unwitting driver had been driving in China’s Shandong province when a broken water main washed out the ground underneath the road and caused it to collapse. “There was a sharp, loud crack and the road just fell away and swallowed up the car,” a witness told media. According to a local engineer, the fault would have been impossible to detect until the road collapsed.
	BAD time to be allergic to dust. A man in Poland on the run for dodging child support payments got his come-uppance when a thick layer of dust forced him to give away his hideaway. The man, Darius Olewski, was hiding from a police raid in a hole that he had created under a cupboard in his house. His sneaky position was however found after police began to hear sneezing coming from under the wooden floor. It was not long until knocking on the wood revealed a hollow spot. Police then removed a false floor panel and found Olewski in a six-foot manhole covered in dust and cobwebs. “Maybe if he’d dusted more often he’d still be on the run,” a policeman told media.
	EXTREME nature! British fishing enthusiast, Steve Townson, has fulfilled a lifelong dream of nabbing one of the largest freshwater fish in the world, a 113kg arapaima. Arapaima are a protected South American species, and thus Townson worked on a catch and release policy, using a 900g piranha as bait. The monster fish was caught in the River Essequibo in Guyana.
	LEARN to fly underwater. If you love water, and have an urge to fly, one French designer, Guillaume Binard, believes you should be able to combine the two passions. To that end, Binard created what he has called the Oceanwings Suit. Crafted using neoprene, the Oceanwings Suit is similar to a wetsuit, but differs in that it also features webbed wings under the arms and between the legs, creating a shape that is similar to an ocean ray. The Suit is described as providing a “more serene” experience in the water, however it is a serenity that only few will experience as Binard has said that his Suit will “never be for sale”.
	DOGS inspire weight loss. A US gym has employed a novel new weight loss method which involves both human and canine participation. The gym, K9 Fit Club, runs its bow wow classes for humans and their pet dogs, and sees the human/pooch combination undergo a series of boot-camp styled exercise designed to help both parties trim the fat. K9 was founded by Tricia Montgomery and her pet basset hound Louie, after both were declared morbidly obese. Exercising with her dog led Montgomery to drop 58kgs, whilst Louie dropped 22% of his body weight. Montgomery now aims to spread her knowledge and help other pup/ person duos struggling with their weight and fitness regain their svelte figures.
	EYE check. A prank has left a few traffic police officers wondering if they should go and get an eye checkup, after they mistook a car made out of snow, for a real car. The prank, which took place in a Aachen, Germany, saw tricksters carefully build a VW car overnight out of snow in freezing temperatures. The construction included outlines for headlights, windscreens and a VW badge. “It was incredibly realistic looking and it looked like you could get into it and drive away once you’d swept the snow off,” one local told media. To add to the joke, the car was built in a strict no parking zone, which attracted the attention of traffic wardens the next morning, who swiftly ticketed the vehicle. The joke did not however amuse the authorities, who after realising they had been hoodwinked told media that “whether it was made of metal or snow it was still obstructing a road that should have been clear”.
	POSTMAN may wave goodbye to his hearing. A six-year-old Golden Retriever from Adelaide, Charlie, has broken the Guinness World Record for the Loudest Bark by an Individual Dog by barking at 113.1db. Charlie’s bark of 113.1db was 42 times louder than everyday conversation and the same volume as a loud rock concert! His bark smashed the previous record set in London in 2009 by Daz, a white German Shepherd, bringing the title to Australia for the very first time.
	HERE’S one way to clean out those blocked sinuses. Chinese stuntman Yang Guanghe, from Guizhou Province, says he deserves to be in the record books for the 30 different bizarre stunts he can perform. In a performance in the city of Changsha he demonstrated his versatility, with the act including pulling a car with his eyelids, and standing on knives and live light bulbs. But the piece de resistance was when he inserted a live snake (below) into one of his nostrils and pulled it out of his mouth.
	FORGET shoes? A new type of sock may be set to take feet by storm, promising wearers a shoe free existence. The Swiss Protection socks are comprised of 50% Kevlar, 32% Polyester, 10% Cotton, and 8% Spandex, and come with PVC sole reinforcement, and are designed to allow wearers to walk as close to barefoot as possible without worrying about feet getting cut or meeting irritating surfaces. “It took many years of technical research and designing to create what we have now,” said Swiss Barefoot Company owner Dieter Hesch. “I’m very happy with it and I even think the Swiss Protection Sock could become fashionable. “We’re also working on a new sock design which we think people will be able to run marathons in,” he added.
	CARMEX cupcakes. The iconic beauty brand Carmex invited PD to help celebrate its 75th anniversary with the delivery of super cute Carmex cupcakes at our offices this week. Carmex has grown exponentially over the last 75 years, since its inception by ex-retail buyer Alfred Woelbing, a long time sufferer of dry, chapped lips, whose experimentation over a hotplate in his family kitchen resulted in the creation of the first Carmex therapeutic lip balm. After creating the solution for his own lips, Woelbing started selling his balm to local pharmacies door to door. By the 40’s and 50’s the popularity of Carmex was on a roll and once lanolin rationing subsided, production really took off! Alfred oversaw the business until his death at 100yrs of age in 2001. Currently over 135 Carmex products are sold every minute across 30 countries worldwide.
	MIRACLE escape. Despite every panel of their car being destroyed, race car drivers Jeremy Foley and Yuri Kouznetsov walked away from a recent car crash with only minor injuries. The duo plunged off the side of a mountain during a section of the Pikes Peak race in Colorado called the Devil’s Playground. The car plunged hundreds of feet, cart wheeling eight times on the way and losing wheels, engine parts and body panels. Both men, still conscious when rescuers got to them, were saved by the car’s roll cage.
	GLOBAL warming has led to some radical hairdressing in the UK, where a pair of rare hairy donkeys have had their fur trimmed for the first time in 17 years. The Baudet du Poitou breed, originally from France, are not normally groomed, with their fur left to grow into long dreadlocks. However a warm summer in Britain has led their owner to lop locks to stop the beasts of burden getting overly hot and bothered.
	NEW sea monster? Deep sea divers off an oil rig have captured images of what some are calling an “undiscovered sea monster”. The video footage started tongues wagging in cyberspace and clocked around 1.2m views. In the underwater video a huge grey blob-like creature emerges from the deep and floats around the divers. Theories flying about as to the creature’s identity (apart from sea monster) include whale placenta, jelly fish, a science fiction sea creature called Cthulhu, or a large plastic bag. Experts however have chimed into the debate, saying it is most likely the creature is a jelly fish from the Ulmaridae family called Deepstaria enigmatica, however according to other experts the “sea monster’s” organs, shown in the video are not consistent with that type of jellyfish.
	PROOF of life after death? British pub goers believe that they have proof that ghosts exist, after capturing a supernatural regular “Reedy” at the Apsley House in Southsea, on camera. According to local legend, Reedy, named after the actor and famed drinker, Oliver Reed, is known to top up peoples drinks. Reedy was captured on an iPhone at a retirement party for one of the pub’s workers. “I was taking lots of photos with my iPhone because it was a fancy dress-themed party,” said the ghost’s photographer, Paul Morgan. “I took a few of a group of friends and it was once I looked at them a while later I noticed something strange in the background,” Morgan added.
	THE perfect face? British scientists have uncovered what they believe to be the perfect face, according to the mathematical principals of the golden ratio. The face belongs to the winner of a Lorraine Cosmetics beauty competition, 18-year old schoolgirl, Florence Colgate. According to scientists Florence’s face is perfectly symmetrical, and has the optimum ratio between eyes, mouth, chin and forehead. Adding to that, University of St Andrews researcher, Carmen Lefèvre, said Florence’s “large eyes, high heekbones, and full lips” upped to her overall beauty.
	LIFE after death. A German artist, Iris Schieferstein, is embracing the ‘waste not, want not’ philosophy, by creating a new range of shoes made out of dead animal parts. The unusual shoe collection includes high heeled horse bootscreated utilising the hooves as the sole of the shoe, and sandals created using the carcasses of dead doves. Not for everyone, the shoes are crafted using dead bits of animals collected from Iris’ local butcher (after having been threatened with gaol time for using road kill), which she then spends a week stripping off flesh and bones, before the hide is tanned. Once tanned, the skin of the animal is then moulded around the foot of a shoe model and set in place before the insoles and lining is added. “I love horses and I love shoes so I thought this would be perfect,” Iris said. “Horses have a beautiful walk and I wanted to recreate that with my footwear,” she added. The shoes sell for around $5,700 a pair.
	HISTORY in the making. A marketing stunt involving the Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire by European bookmaker Paddy Power, has caused uproar, with British citizens saying it cheapens an important historical monument. The White Horse monument is around 3,000 years old, and is a 110m long prehistoric hill figure of a horse, made using deep trenches of white chalk. The bookies however added a jockey to the horse, using canvas and tent pegs, to promote the Cheltenham Festival.
	YOU’VE heard of the large intestine, but this is ridiculous. Bowel Cancer Australia is making the most of the thousands of delegates to APP this weekend with a confronting display depicting a gigantic blowup bloody colon. Hopefully not to be used as a jumping castle by attendees, the “super colon” display (pictured below) encourages people not to “sit on their symptoms” and gives information about prevention and treatment of bowel cancer. The quirky display is one of a number of APP Trade Exhibition foyer exhibits which will be open from today.
	VISION of the future? Robot maker, Giles Walker, has turned more than a few heads at the recent CeBIT high-tech fair in Germany with his pair of pole dancing robots (pictured below). Created out of old car parts, the duo’s suggestive dancing is computer controlled using wireless technology and is set to music played by a third “DJ” robot, who bops his head as the ladies perform. For those that would want to hire the robots for a party however, the price tag may be a bit of a sticking point, with the trio commanding around US$40,000 per performance.
	EVERY pig has its day. A 250kg Australian pig named Boris is set to make history after a vet agreed to make him the first ungulate to undergo facelift surgery. The surgery has been necessitated by Boris’ recent weight gain, which triggered a deformity which made his brow droop over his eyes, rendering him sightless. According to Boris’ family, putting the porker on a diet did not help the situation, as his weight loss led to even more skin sag over his peepers.
	IT’S a dog, no it’s a sheep…? A sheep farmer in China’s Shaanxi Province is claiming one of his animals has given birth to a puppy, after he found the mother sheep cleaning her newborn. According to reports the animal has wool, but its eyes, nose and mouth seemingly belong to a dog. Scientists have however put the kybosh on the story, saying it was simply not possible for a sheep to give birth to a dog. Animal researcher, Yue Guozhang from the Xi’an City Animal Husbandry Technology Centre, aimed to dispel the myth which has so far drawn flocks of people to see the sheep-dog, telling local media that “it’s likely that this is just an abnormal lamb”.
	CLOSE call for pharmacy. Pharmacy staffers and shoppers at CVS Pharmacy in the US city of Hartford breathed a sigh of relief following a brush with death which involved a car crashing through a solid brick wall to park inside the store. According to reports the driver of the car was trying (fairly unsuccessfully) to score the perfect park outside the chemist, which quickly turned into a more ‘convenient’ park inside the shop. Fortunately no one was injured during the fiasco, however the pharmacy will remain closed until a full assessment of its structural damage can be made.
	YOU’D need a sedative afterwards! A new activity has entered onto the world stage, and is claimed by its originators to be “the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt”. “Extreme Ironing” has taken off on the internet, with YouTube clips of the sport’s contenders ironing in extreme situations (including kayaking, rappelling and even skydiving) racking up thousands of views the world over. It is believed that the genesis of extreme ironing began over a decade ago when a rock climber, Phil Shaw, decided to combine exciting climbing excursions with the drab household chore. The latest extreme ironing stunt shows a man in a dressing gown and slippers ironing in the middle of an empty road.
	HEALTH crisis averted. A Chinese woman is lucky to have escaped unscathed after accidentally reversing her 4WD over the edge of the roof of a multi-storey car park. According to reports, Shan Dan, who had only been driving for six months, ended up precariously perched on the edge of peril after hitting the accelerator instead of the brake whilst reversing out of her car spot. Shan’s 4WD then charged through the car park’s barrier and half over the edge of the car park. “I was absolutely terrified when I got out and saw the precarious position of my car,” she told media. Fortunately she was uninjured during the incident, however she will face a hefty bill after a crane had to be called in to safely lift the vehicle to the ground.
	GOOD sporting genes. An 18-month old Dutch toddler, Baerke van der Meij, will need to wait until he has full mastery of his speaking skills to thank his father and grandfather for helping him to score a 10 year contract with local soccer club, VV Venlo. According to reports, Baerke was nabbed by the club after it viewed a clip of him repeatedly kicking a soccer ball into a toy box. The clip, posted on YouTube by his proud father, has so far attracted around 150,000 views. In a twist of fate, it turns out that Baerke’s grandfather passed the soccer genes down to the toddler, having himself played for VV Venlo. A spokesperson for the club joked with local media that “The toddler’s favourite position has not yet been determined”. “But we can speak of a rightfooted player with a very good kicking technique, perseverance and, importantly, football genes via his grandfather,” the spokesperson added.
	A BABY girl has been born in China with two heads and one body, following an emergency Csection earlier in the month. According to reports, the child was shown to be developing normally in the first two scans undertaken by her mother, and it was not until the third scan did doctors notice that the baby had two heads. Soon after the mother went into labour and doctors delivered the little girl who was also found to have two spines, one and a half hearts and other shared organs. ““We couldn’t do a separation surgery on the baby,” said the surgeon who delivered the child “They must live together,” the surgeon added.
	MAGNET boy. An extraordinary six-year old boy in Croatia is enjoying the limelight after he discovered he was magnetic, literally. Objects from cutlery, pans, dumbbells and even mobile phones stick to the boy, with his family now claiming he is able to heal the sick through his touch. The family also claim the boy has super strength.
	THE healthy art of engineering. Engineering students at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany have created the world’s first trike powered solely by two electric screwdrivers. The 20kg trike was structurally inspired by a “skeleton with its organs”, and can reach speeds of up to 20km/h. To operate the rider needs to “sit” in what appears to be an extremely non-ergonomic headlong position, operating the machine via brake and accelerator controls which respond to the tilt of the rider’s body. “It’s definitely not the best vehicle for long distances but is a lot of fun to drive,” a student said. “It makes you want to accelerate, brake, corner, compete and snake your way around obstacles as soon as you get in the driver’s seat,” he added. The students created the trike to compete in a design competition which required the use of screwdrivers.
	WHOA! Bunion relief may be needed for this new footwear range. Designer shoes made to look like horses’ hooves have gone on sale at a race carnival in the UK, and are a snap at a meagre £1300 (about $2100) a pair. Debuting at the Cheltenham Festival this week, the knee-length zip-up boots (pictured) are being billed as “the perfect thing to wear for a day at the races”. Some may baulk at the cost, but the makers say neigh to that, with each boot made of up to 5000 individual genuine horse hairs, as well as an imitation carbon-fibre hoof. Proceeds from the sale of the special boots will go to charity, with the items developed by wagering firm Betfair, who said punters wearing the designer hooves would be a “shoe-in for best dressed”.
	SLOW and steady wins the race? It took just 26 days and a will of steel for the “human snail” to complete the iconic London Marathon this month. Encased in his snail costume (a character called Brian from a popular UK children’s show), the former soccer player Lloyd Scott toiled for eight hours a day on a metal sled to move, using a periscopic camera to see where he was going. During his epic snail race, Scott suffered consistent nose bleeds and nausea inside the snail, and at one point had to go to hospital to have his nose cauterised. But Scott wasn’t complaining, saying he didn’t want the journey to be easy, as he was raising money for sick children who themselves do not have an easy road. “I mean, it’s the children that are here today that’s really been foremost on my mind and have been driving me forward,” he said.
	PHARMACIES looking into expanding their optical range could stock a new product developed by a Chinese farmer. Zhang Xiaolong has fitted his roosters with specially made glasses (pictured) to stop the aggressive birds from fighting. The optical innovation is actually a type of “blinker” which stops the chickens from being able to see straight ahead, which makes confrontations harder. The farmer from Xiamen said he was losing ten birds a day due to the fighting, but now the coop is much more peaceful.
	BOWLED over by charity. A 25-tonne rock which demolished the home of Phil Johnson during the recent Christchurch earthquake, has sold online in a charity auction for an impressive $44,000. Listed on the Trade Me site under the description: “For sale, 1 owner, 25-30 tonne landscape feature (answers to the name Rocky).” “He is in pristine condition (just a little bit of concrete dust). “Suitable for garden feature, or as in our case, a magnificent addition to your living area… “Rocky will enhance your ‘indoor-outdoor’ flow considerably.” The winning bid went to a Mount Hutt ski resort, who plan to display Rocky out the front of its establishment. All proceeds from the sale are being donated by Johnson to a relief fund for quake victims.
	YOU haven’t seen short until you’ve seen 17 year old Junrey Balawing. Shorter than most one year old infants, Filipino born Balawing stands just 22 inches tall, a whole five inches shorter than the current Guinness Book of Records title holder, Nepalese man Khagendra Thapa Magar. Balawing apparently stopped growing during his early infancy, a condition which makes it hard for him to walk and stand up. He’s said to be thrilled at the prospect of scooping a world record on his 18th birthday in Jun.
	EXCESS follicles are not concerning. An 11-year old girl from Thailand, Supatra Sasuphan, has been crowned the world’s hairiest girl by the Guinness Book of Records. Covered with thick hair on her face, ears, arms and legs, Sasuphan has been diagnosed with the extremely rare Ambras Syndrome. Only 50 people have ever been recorded as having the condition, which is caused by a faulty chromosome. Having suffered some teasing for her hair, Sasuphan told media that her new title has made her the most popular girl in school.
	DOLPHIN ultrasound. A 29-year old dolphin, Tapeko, recently rolled belly up for a semi-submersed ultrasound at Brookfield Zoo in Illinois, in exchange for a tasty fish treat. The examination confirmed Tapeko is in the first stages of a 12 month-long pregnancy. “Due to the relationship built on mutual trust and respect between trainers and animals, Tapeko voluntarily cooperated during these exams,” a zoo spokesperson said.
	GHOST hunters prepare for battle! Council members in the Tasmanian township of New Norfolk have voted to bring in paranormal experts in order to prove definitively whether the town’s abandoned mental institution is haunted. The former mental health hospital, Willow Court, has been an unofficial drawcard for ghost hunters and curious tourists alike, who visit the spooky site in the hopes of hearing, seeing or smelling some of its famed bumps in the night. Plans are now in place for a team from the Australian Paranormal Investigation Unit to spend three nights in Ward C and Alonnah (where the “criminally insane” residents were held). One skeptic, Leyon Parker, told media that the team would need photographic and aural evidence, as well as eyewitness accounts to change Aussie skeptics’ minds.
	LIFE in miniature. US artist named Christopher Boffoli is making headlines with his depictions of daily activities amongst items of food. The tiny hand painted models of people going about their daily business take Boffoli many weeks to create, and are then popped onto (or into) life size food models. Examples of his artwork include two couples rowing through a bottle of spilt milk, and a man mowing his lawn on top of a broccoli floret.
	A STREET sweeper in Bejing has become a local celebrity after a YouTube videoclip of her practising martial arts whilst working hit the internet. “Before I got the job I used to do Tai chi both using my body and with a sword, and I missed them because with this job I start at 5am and finish at 4pm,” said an abashed Zhang Xiufang. “But then one day I was swinging the broom and it reminded me of my old hobby – and then I started practising again,” she added. “I have even been asked by other street sweepers to show them some tricks – it’s a great way to relax and stay fit in what is a very demanding job so why not?”
	PIGS fly? Well, not quite, but one pig in the Chinese province of Henan, has become a local celebrity after it was taught to walk on its two front feet. Having only been born with her two front trotters ten-month old Zhu Jianqiang (meaning strongwilled pig) was taught by her owner, Wang Xihai to walk upside down by lifting her tail. “My wife asked me to dump it but I refused, as it’s a life,” he said. “I thought I should give it a chance to survive, and amazingly it has,” He added. Now weighing in at a hefty 50kgs, Zhu Jianqiang is in hot demand, with a few local circus’ offering top dollar for her services, to which Xihai has refused.
	NEED energy quick? In the search for the strongest coffee, one man has created what he now calls, Death Wish Coffee. The man behind the Wish, Mike Brown, is a barista who decided to break out and make his own blend after getting fed up with customers constantly ranting at him for “stronger coffee”. 1 I had to go through the process every day of explaining to them that dark roasts were actually the least caffeinated,” Brown said. “This began my journey for finding and roasting the Death Wish bean and after many trial and error processes I found it. “The type of blend, bean and roasting process we use makes Death Wish Coffee the strongest in the world,” he added.
	HE needs some Deep Heat stat! Polish national Krystian Herba has set the world record for bicycle jumping, after bouncing up 2,754 stairs on his bike. Amazingly the feat only took Herba one hour 21 minutes and 53 seconds to complete, from the bottom of the 492-metre Shanghai World Financial Center to its observatory. During his attempt, neither Herba’s feet nor hands touched the ground.
	GOING against nature. A pair of foxes turned the tables on nature recently, after they decided not to be prey to a cheetah, and instead chased the big cat away. The moment was snapped by an onlooker who watched the cheetah stalk the foxes on a plain in Tanzania. Despite the obvious size and strength differences, the foxes decided not to become dinner and turned on the cheetah charging it and scaring it enough for it to take off at speed. “It looked to me like it was a bit of a game and they weren’t interested in hurting each other,” a bystander said.
	WHAT the! A ten-year old Serbian girl, Jelena Momcilov, has shocked medical professionals with her so called “magnetic hands”. Currently under investigation, Jelena began to discover her magnetic abilities when she was five years old, being able to pick up metal objects in her family home by simply touching, not gripping them. “I’d say this is a kind of unknown bio-magnetism,” said head researcher, Pavle Premovi, at Nis University.
	A CHINESE man who taught his puppy to smoke cigarettes is being criticised for getting the dog addicted to nicotine. 23-year-old Zeng Ziguang from the city of Wuchang says he’s been teaching “Blackie” to smoke since buying him six months go. “He hated the smell of smoke to begin with,” he said. “But I trained him to get used to it by blowing smoke to him”. Zeng said gradually the dog became used to the smell “and I started putting the lit cigarette into his mouth. Each time he did that, I would reward him with food.” Unfortunately what started out as a neat party trick has developed into an expensive habit, with the puppy’s new addiction meaning he gets through a pack of cigarettes a day. The man’s neighbours are also not impressed, with one telling the Changjiang Daily that “He is a terrible pet owner”.
	A WEIGHTY problem for a primate. An orangutan, Oshine, living at Monkey World in Dorset in the UKI has been put on a strict diet after having arrived tipping the scales at a massive 100kgs. The healthy weight range for a typical orangutan is between 31 and 76 kilos. Orshine arrived at Monkey World recently after having been donated by her previous South African owner who raised her (and fed her a lot) for the past thirteen years. Eventually it was decided that it was in Orshine’s best interests to be looked after by a team of experts, so now on a strict diet of vegetables and fruits, and despite her age, Orshine has been placed in a orangutan crèche where she will learn to socialise with others of her kind. It is hoped that following her weight loss (which will take a few months) Orshine will enter the park’s breeding program.
	HIGH-rise eco systems. French architectural firm Vincent Callebaut Architects has released plans for a series of ‘farmscrapers’. The futuristic-styled skyscrapers combine farming ecosystems with apartment living and office units. Measuring 396-metres in height, and featuring 111 floors, the farmscrapers include suspended gardens on each of the structures’ exteriors, as well as wind turbines and solar panels to green the whole process. “It is a prototype to build a green, dense, smart city connected by technology and eco-designed from biotechnologies,” a statement from the firm said. According to reports, the six farmscrapers are destined for Shenzhen, and are aimed at combating environmental issues with overcrowding.
	NOT performing to peak? A groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil may be in need of some R&R to get him back on form. Punxsutawney Phil is currently in the bad books of the good people of Ohio after he wrongly predicted an early spring. For his actions, Phil has been charged with a felony by the state prosecutor, Mike Gmoser, who told media that the actions of the groundhog represented a felony against “the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio”. “Punxsutawney Phil did purposely, and with prior calculation and design, cause the people to believe that spring would come early,” he said, quipping that the penalty for the crime was “death”. Coming out in defence of the overwhelmed Phil, Bill Deeley, president of the Punxsutawney club that organizes Groundhog Day, told media that the penalty was “harsh”. The chubby critter does however have some good protections in place, to stave off the wrath of the state, with his enclosure being right beside the police station, and with officers vowing to watch over the slightly misinformed munchkin.
	NATURE or nurture? A seal pup has defied nature to end up 6.5kms from the coast line, deep within a Swedish forest. The pup was discovered by a hiker in Uppsala in Sweden. “A somewhat confused person called and said he was out walking in the woods where he had found a seal pup,” a police spokesperson told media. “I thought he was joking at first,” the policeman added. According to experts, it is believed that the pup may have gotten separated from its mother whilst splashing in a river and ended up swimming the wrong way into the forest. The pup has since been released back into a habitat more suited to a seal.
	RID yourself of fear. The owners of a public swimming pool in England tested the mettle of their patrons, by hosting a movie screening of Jaws. The aqua-themed movie evening saw guests pack into and around the pool for a screening of the family favourite Finding Nemo, which was followed hopefully by an intermission and loo break, and then with a screening of the infamous Jaws, a movie which single-handedly may be responsible for more shark phobias world-wide, than any other Hollywood blockbuster. To add to the evening, the movie’s sound was audible both above and below the water.
	NEW anger management methods. Local Chinese media have reported an unusual new method of anger management, as invented by 41 year old Wen Jian. According to reports, Jian has spent the last 13 years growing his fingernails, in a bid to curb his fighting ways. The 14 inch nails stop Jian from forming a fist, and in his own words “make [him] think before throwing a punch”
	THIS easter bunny isn’t funny. A rabbit named Ralph has regained his title as the world’s fattest bunny, after putting on another two kilograms in weight. Ralph, pictured below with doting owner Pauline Grant, has a daily diet including cabbage, broccoli, corn, a carrot and apples – as well as brown bread, Weet-Bix and cream biscuits. Hungry Ralph previously held the title in 2010 after being overtaken by another Continental Giant which has since died.
	GOODBYE moobs. A 53 year old man, Guo Qingpo, from the Chinese Shandong province has gone under the knife in an epic operation to remove the world’s biggest set of man boobs. The moobs began to rise from Qingpo’s chest ten years ago, however at the time were dismissed as weight gain. It was only two years ago when they grew to the size of two footballs that Qingpo began to worry. “People would stare at me wherever I went,” he said. It took 20 experts from across eight hospital departments to come up with a solution to the moobs issue, which saw two teams of medical staff working side-by-side for six hours to each remove one breast. Qingpo has been recovering in hospital for a month, and having just been released told reporters that he was “over the moon” with the results.
	WHAT a prestigious title! A 20-year old actor, Nick Afanasiev, who hails from sunny California, has been granted the illustrious title of ‘America’s Longest Tongue’. Measuring in at a healthy 3.5 inches from his (closed) top lip to tongue tip Afanasiev is a mere 0.37 inches shy of being able to take the crown of ‘World’s Longest Tongue’. “I knew it was long, I just didn’t know it was one of the longest,” said the humble tongue title holder Afanasiev. Taking him to even greater heights of fame and fortune, his long tongue status led him to secure a cameo role on the tween sitcom hit, iCarly.
	Here’s the perfect accessory for your pharmacy’s lunch room. A new coffee maker has been announced by an Italian manufacturer, which looks exactly like a huge car engine. The Espresso Veloce V12 (pictured) dispenses espresso via the exhaust pipes, after high pressure water is forced through grounds in an oil filter lookalike coffee chamber. It comes complete with piston-shaped cups, and is said to be modelled on a half-scale 3-litre Grand Prix engine – the perfect way to get your motor running on a cold winter’s morning.
	Pharmacy customers can now be ready for the Zombie apocalypse, after the launch of new fragrances claimed to make the undead smell more bearable. New York perfumier Demeter Fragrance Library says its new ‘Zombie for Him’ and ‘Zombie for Her’ both enable the “dead to simply pass by without offending”. According to the Demeter website, Zombie for Him includes dried leaves, mushrooms, mildew, moss and earth – while Zombie for Her is a “slightly lighter version” which adds “dregs from the bottom of the wine barrel for that feminine touch”. They’re available in a limited edition for the next month or so, with several reviews on the Demeter website surprisingly positive. Comments include: “as soon as I sprayed it on myself it reminded me of a graveyard” and “I can’t wait to shamble around smelling so interesting”. And a comment on Zombie for Her stated “If zombies actually smell like this I might not fear the zombie apocalypse as much!”.
	A US designer has created a new range of “ice” cubes – actually made of stainless steel. Dave Laituri said he came up with the idea for people who like their scotch on the rocks, but don’t want extra water from melting ice. Known as ‘Pucs,’ the stainless steel objects (pictured below) also allow drinkers to decide how cool the drink gets by adding a preferred number of cubes. They cost about $40 for a set of six.
	TRAVELLERS in Poland should check the menu carefully when they eat out, according to a British tourist who discovered one restaurant offering “cervical cancer served on beetroot carpaccio”. Owen Durray was on holiday in the town of Poznan, and eating at a seafood restaurant called Bee Jays in the main street. “I wanted something fishy but I didn’t expect this,” he said, adding that he quickly lost his appetite when he read the menu (below). A spokesman for the restaurant said the meal was actually a crayfish dish. “We will be having a word with our translator,” he added.
	COMPOUNDERS may be interested in a special recipe which is up for sale on eBay, with a whopping $5m starting price. US man Cliff Kluge claims to have found a 70-year-old copy of the official recipe for Coca-Cola. He’s posted a copy of the letter online – but with details of the particular ingredients and quantities blocked out (below). Kluge says the document was in a box of papers he purchased from a deceased estate sale. Coca-Cola denies the authenticity of the recipe, saying “the real formula is safely tucked away in a vault at the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta”.
	US President Barack Obama was in no danger of catching a chill from a brief rainstorm during an event at the White House on Tue – he has a crack team of marines at the ready to hold an umbrella. Obama was holding a joint press conference with Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and when drops started to fall he said “Why don’t we get a couple of Marines. “They’re gonna look good next to us,” he said – and they did (below), whipping out the brollies with military precision.
	GOODBYE diapers, hello toilet car! An American father has designed a world-first twin bowl toilet car. Dave Hersch took a total of four years to perfect his design, with the first prototype not even making it past the first driving test after its toilet fell off and smashed to pieces whilst Dave rounded a corner. The “car” was surprisingly inspired by a ‘Hot Wheels’ toy design, and features two toilets a 6.5hp motor, space for six toilet rolls and a magazine rack. Distinguished passengers are able to travel in the vehicle at a top speed of 30mph. “Adults take photos and kids jump up and down with excitement,” said Hersch. “It’s a great way to meet all the people in my neighborhood without all the typical grown-up formalities,” he added.
	A US man whose hair is about a metre long (below) is offering to sell his glorious tresses to the highest bidder. He’s listed his hair on the Craigslist website, saying “my radical hair is not cut yet – it can be cut to your specifications. “My hair is 100% virgin hair, it has never been dyed, permed or chemically altered”. He says he never uses curlers, hot rollers or straighteners, and has always let it dry naturally, poetically adding that it’s “jet black, the way a raven shines in the moonlight, the colour of a deep dark sleep”. Unless the price is right, he said, he won’t lop the locks.
	THIS dish certainly has all of the important food groups. The home ground of the Battle Creek Bombers, a minor league baseball team from Michigan in the USA, has attracted worldwide attention for one of its signature meal items. It’s a full meal in one – including dessert – combining the normally savoury flavours of a hot dog with something a little sweeter. The so-called Twinkle Dog involves a frankfurt being stuffed into a pastry treat called a Twinkie, along with the customary ketchup and mustard. The whole lot is then topped off with whipped cream plus hundreds and thousands (below) – complete with a maraschino cherry on top.
	THE Pharmacy Guild is threatening a “root and branch” uprising over a government advertising campaign which has left community pharmacy out of the “Medicare tree” (below). Taking a leaf out of the book of those who threaten the retail pharmacy network, the advertising campaign omits pharmacists from the Medicare for All ‘health system tree’ promoting the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record. According to Guild spokesman Greg Turnbull, some of the other health professions are mentioned tree three or four times, and asks why nobody has twigged to the glaring omission. “Surely there was room somewhere on this lush tree for community pharmacy – health care providers who deliver medication management and frontline health advice to millions of Australians at 5200 locations across the continent,” he barked. “Why wood they do that? We’re stumped? They are barking up the wrong tree if they think they can give pharmacy the brush off,” he added in outrage at the profession’s treetment.
	BRITAIN’S fattest cat has been placed on a very strict diet, after being entered into a pet slimming competition. Ulric, who’s a Norwegian Forest cat (below), weighs a whopping 13.6kg, is owned by Jan Mitchell who said “he is a lovely cat but he’s just very greedy and lazy”. He’s the heaviest cat to ever take part in the competition, with the new regime involving weighing of each meal to ensure he’s eating correctly.
	THE latest anti-fashion sensation from China is so-called “hairy stockings” – an innovation which apparently aims to discourage approaches from the opposite sex. The stockings, pictured below, are actually hirsute leggings which first appeared on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, with some users describing them as “anti-pervert stockings”. They’ve also been billed as “essential for all girls going out”.
	THERE may have been chocolate overload on one of the stands at last weekend’s NSW Pharmacy National Convention & Exhibition in Sydney. Dose Innovations demonstrated its extensive range of automated dispensary robots, including a huge Rowa system which was able to pick and pack items selected by a pharmacist using an iPad in the front of shop. Also fascinating was an MDM machine which allowed medications to be automatically packed into Dose Administration Aids for nursing home patients. We’re not sure what conditions they were being treated for, because a close examination of the items dispensed revealed that the clients had actually been prescribed various colours of M&Ms (below).
	A NATIONWIDE search in the USA has named four month-old Liam Keilbart from Arizona (pictured below) as the country’s best “stinky face”. It’s the result of a quest which was run on Facebook by a company called Munchkin Inc which makes a range of products for babies and toddlers. The America’s Best Stinky Face competition was to celebrate the ‘Odor Controlling Powers’ of its Arm & Hammer Diaper Pail. This mighty product is “helping to rid America of stinky faces forever by eliminating unpleasant nursery odours,” Munchkin said.
	Not exactly health food. Japanese stores have started selling a new taste sensation – cola-tasting crunchy snacks. The new Pepsi-flavoured Cheetos (pictured) have been sampled by the Impulsive Buy blog, which reported that in this case “the cheese powder has been replaced with a cola powder that is disturbingly not brown”. The snack apparently smells like flat fizzy drink mixed with the aroma of cinnamon donuts.
	YOGA is not always a healthy choice. A Chinese man has been arrested after grinding peak-hour traffic in Guangzhou (population 10.1 million) to a halt doing his morning exercise. According to reports the man strode out into the middle of the road and performed a yoga routine for one hour before police could reach him.
	HOW about this was a way to improve all-round fitness? An inventive engineer in China, Li Guowei, has crafted the world’s first amphibious bicycle, with hopes of marketing it in the near future. Comprised of a conventional normal bike fitted with eight buoyancy barrels (which can be folded away on land) and a propeller at the back, the creation is Guowei’s third attempt, with the first having drowned in the river and the second, being top heavy and difficult to steer in the water. In a recent test Guowei rode his water bike across a 1km stretch river in just under 30 mins. “Anyone can ride this bike. It is cheap and very suitable as a family water transportation vehicle,” Guowei said.
	AN INTRIGUING case of cross-species relations has emerged in – you guessed it – China. A newly born wolf cub, found dumped and alone in the wild by Chinese villagers out on a hunt, has forged an unlikely friendship with his adopted mother, a goat. The wolf, now three years of age, was given to one of the villagers, Chen Ming, to raise, as his goat had milk, and now it appears that the pair are virtually inseparable. “They eat and sleep together,” Chen said. “Everyone who comes to my home is surprised by the scene; that prey is very good friends with the predator,” he added. The friendship however is soon to end, with Chen pledging to release his wolf back into the wild so that it can lead a “more natural” life.
	An obese pussy has apparently attracted a cult following in the Californian city of Sacramento. The huge cat (below), named Norm Lopez, has soared in popularity after publicity over a heartwarming reunion. A stranger mistook the fat feline for a pregnant cat in distress and took him to an animal shelter. Fortunately staff recognised Norm from his Facebook page and reunited him with his owner Tyler, with lots of media coverage. Norm’s image is now emblazoned on T-shirts from local bands, and he has over 2000 fans on Facebook.
	A somewhat unhealthy sandcastle has been erected on Brighton Beach in the UK to celebrate a long weekend public holiday, made using 90,000 Cadbury Dairy Milk Pebbles. The delicious construction, pictured below, involved the use of 250kg of fondant icing and 20kg of icing sugar, which were used to adhere the thousands of chocolate buttons onto a specially constructed frame.
	Women are supposed to be good at multitasking, but this is probably taking it a bit far. A mother in a hurry has been busted for breastfeeding her young son at the same time as driving her moped through heavy traffic in central China (below). According to witnesses the 18-month-old was crying as the vehicle wove its way through other vehicles in the city of Yuzhou in Henan province. “So she suddenly lifted up her T-shirt, whipped out her breast and started to feed him on the move,” one motorist said. Police became involved and gave her a stern reprimand. “She was risking her life, her son’s life and the lives of all the the other road users,” said a police spokesperson.
	GOOD news, ladies. Isaiah Mustafa, known to the world as “The Face of Old Spice,” is heading down under. The occasion is the relaunch of Procter & Gamble’s iconic Old Spice range in Australia, with Isaiah quipping that his love for Australia is the secret to his astounding manliness. “I’ve ridden horses, battled great white sharks and travelled the world, but what I’m most excited about is visiting Australia and shaking the hand of the manliest man,” he said. Mustafa, who’s pictured below in his famous Old Spice TV ad role as “the man your man could smell like,” will be in Sydney next week. Before his arrival he has made a special address to the nation: “Hello ladies of Australia, look at your man, now back at me, sadly he’s not me. “But luckily for you I’ll be coming down under and bringing Old Spice to your manly nation, because all manly men deserve to smell like a man, man.” The revamped Old Spice male grooming portfolio will feature twelve products including body sprays, body washes, deodorant sticks and of course aftershave. The campaign is being supported by a humorous page at facebook.com/OldSpiceAUNZ, which includes the wise saying “to be a champion you must smell like one…unless, of course, you are the champion of smelling bad. In that case you might want to smell like the guy who came last”.
	JUST as a coalition of health groups urges changes to the way that soft drinks are marketed (PD yesterday), a brand new product launching in Japan is set to rock the category. It’s the world’s first canned hot and fizzy drink – Canada Dry Hot Ginger Ale – and has been produced by the Coca-Cola Company after years of research into new technology which heats up the soda while retaining the carbonation. Apparently the beverage has a spicy cinnamon and apple flavour, and will go on sale in vending machines across Japan in October.
	Facing facts in the mirror has just taken on a whole new perspective as a US company now offers a glue-on face alternative to plastic surgery. Claimed to replace both the “painful” option of surgical intervention for beauty and the “tedious” task of applying layers of makeup, the Uniface Mask glue-on face comes completely made up to last with enviable features. Forget skin smoothers, base makeup, blushers, blotches, pimples, rosacea and powder makeups – the answer is here. The brainchild of Zhuoying Li, a graduate from the New School for Design in New York, the instant face-lift promises a “lifetime’s worth of confidence” using “bionic skin” technology for what is claimed to be a comfortable fit. “Uniface Mask is a dream fulfilling face that satisfies today’s beauty standards,” says the company’s website online at www.unifacemask.com. “Giant anime eyes, long lashes, a high nose bridge, and narrow chin and cheeks are all in one product for a lifetime’s worth of confidence. It’s time to be free from painful and dangerous plastic surgeries or tiring make up, gadgets and circle lenses. “With Uniface mask, it’s only one step to become an ideal beauty. Simply spray on our cell-blending glue, and put on the mask. Your beautiful life will start from here!” At this stage the Uniface Mask is only promoted for women, and costs US$399.99 including the special “cell-blending glue,” and the site says it qualifies for the FDA G.R.A.S. (generally recognised as safe) standard.
	Ukrainian men are being encouraged to boost their fitness, with a new range of breast-shaped dumbbells. The novelty weights have been created by the “306 Creative Communication Agency” based in Kiev, which is using them (extremely successfully) to create awareness of its brand. The special fitness aids come in three sizes – small, medium and large – and are made from cast iron and finished off with a rubber and gloss paint coating. The special dumbbells have been patented, and will be stocked in Ukrainian sporting goods stores from next month. According to the firm’s website, they are “sports equipment for real men, who think about women all the time even when the iron is held in the hands”.
	Sharing is definitely not caring at Princeton University in the USA, where authorities are running a major campaign which aims to curb the spread of meningitis. Special 16oz cups (pictured) have been distributed to students labelled “Mine. Not Yours” complete with markings for the standard size of alcoholic beverages. There have been five cases of meningitis on the campus in he last few months, and apparently a propensity to share drinks has been a contributor to the spate.
	Chinese surgeons have achieved a breakthrough after managing to grow a spare nose on the forehead of a patient. The new nose was created so that it could be transplanted in place of his original one, which had been damaged in an accident. 22-year-old Mr Xiaolian, from Fuzhou in Fujian province, contracted an infection in the cartilage, making it impossible for surgeons to repair the nose. According to a BBC report, the replacement was grown by placing a “skin tissue expander” into his forehead, cutting it into the shape of a nose and implanting cartilage taken from the man’s ribs (below). Apparently the new nose is “in good shape,” with transplant surgery to be undertaken soon. The procedure, called flap prefabrication, was also successfully undertaken in the UK last year when a man who had lost his nose to cancer had a new one grown on his arm.
	A pharmacy at Melbourne Airport has become world famous overnight, after a kangaroo hopped into the terminal and ended up in the skincare aisle of the chemist shop. Reinforcing the widely held stereotype that Aussies all have kangaroos in the back yard, the marsupial had apparently been injured in a collision with a car. The news was broken (of course) on social media network Twitter, with comedian Julia Morris spotting the creature and tweeting “Ok, so I’m at Melbourne Airport and a KANGAROO has just jumped into the chemist”. She also attached hashtags #notajoke, #soundslikeajoke and #mustneedaprescriptionfilled. Websites across the globe quickly picked up the story, with Twitter snaps of the bemused animal (below) also giving some huge publicity to Swisspers.
	WHAT is believed to be America’s first toilet-themed restaurant has opened in Los Angeles. The quirky owners of the Magic Restroom Cafe insist that everything is completely hygienic, despite serving food in miniature ceramic toilet bowls and urinals. Diners also sit on the toilet to eat – but “Ladies, no worries – the seats are already down” according to one online reviewer. Dishes at the Taiwanese eatery have imaginary names such as “black poop” (a chocolate sundae), a “constipation” (a pork dish) and the signature dish, “golden poop” rice.
	A discount store in Oslo has apologised over a retailing blunder which saw it selling realistic severed hands and feet, as part of its Halloween product range. The Europris bargain outlet packaged the fake plastic body parts in polystyrene trays, similar to those used by butchers to sell meat (below). The move prompted a flurry of complaints from outraged parents including a storm of protest on social media. “It’s such a shame that we have an American tradition so violently forced down our throats,” wrote one furious commentator.
	Not quite what you’d call a diet food – but certainly a way to get drunk and fat at the same time. An American company is claiming a world first after launching alcoholic beer-flavoured ice cream (pictured). The so-called ‘Frozen Pints’ product range comes in seven different flavours, all based on different types of boutique beers and the strongest one – called Pumpkin Ale – has an alcohol content of 3.2%, about the same as that of a light beer. You have to be over 21 to buy the product – and it’s pretty hard to get inebriated on it. “One pint of Frozen Pints ice cream is equal to one pint of beer – so you would have to eat a lot of ice cream to get drunk,” the New York-based company said.
	Move over, Movember. 58-year-old Ram Singh Chauhan from Jaipur, India has been officially named as the owner of the world’s longest moustache. Chauhan, who’s been cultivating his facial hair for the last 43 years, says his spectacular ‘tache is his “most prized possession. “It has taken me a long, long time to get it to 14 feet. it’s not been an easy task,” he said. “I haven’t used a shaving blade on my moustache, or trimmed it since 1970. “Growing a moustache is like taking care of a baby – you really need to nurture it,” he added. The incredible mo made a cameo appearance in the James Bond film Octopussy, and he spends about two hours a day grooming it. Despite all of its care, the mo’s growth has slowed drastically in recent years but is still way ahead of other contenders. The feat has now been recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records (below).
	IF you have to check the price, you definitely can’t afford it. Upmarket French jewellery house Boucheron has released a new cosmetic product which is perfect for Christmas. The new Creme de la Mer comes in a fabulous mother-of-pearl case (pictured) and is a snap at £12,500 (around $21,000). The exquisite container is only being made in a limited edition of just ten numbered jars, and is exclusively available at London’s upmarket Harrod’s department store. The moisturising cream costs a still hefty £105 (A$176) in its regular container.
	The operators of a Japanese fast food outlet have seen a doubling in sales after introducing new napkins to help out messy eaters. Freshness Burger found that customs in Japan, where small feminine mouths or “ochobo” are considered attractive, were affecting its business. The company’s largest burger, The Classic, was very popular with men but hardly any ladies chose it because of the potential for eating embarrassment. The new “Liberation Wrapper” (below) is a napkin with a politely closed small mouth printed on it, and promises to free females from “the spell of ochobo”.
	How awesome is this? Seattle, USA-based meat products producer J&D’s foods has launched a new bacon-scented deodorant (pictured). The Power Bacon Deodorant Stick promises to provide “24 hours of bacon scent” and claims to have been specially designed for people with active lifestyles. Promoted with the tag-line “for when you sweat like a pig,” it comes with the instructions: “Apply liberally to underarms or private areas for all-day meat-scented protection”. It’s the brain-child of bacon-mad entrepreneurs Dave Lefkow and Justin Esch, with the company’s range also including bacon-tasting lip balm and shaving cream.
	Physical activity is good for you, even if it’s somewhat unusual. A 30-year-old Japanese man has set a new world record for travelling 100m on all fours. Kenichi Ito did the dash in just 16.87 seconds, shaving 0.5s off his previous record set in 2012. Ito is a massive fan of moving around on his hands and feet, having studied how primates move for the last decade. He’s hoping that racing on four limbs will one day become an official Olympic event. He wore special racing gloves to accomplish the feat, and is pictured below celebrating with the official Guinness World Records commemorative certificate.
	Placenta picture frames are the latest innovation for new parents, as a way of creating a permanent keepsake of their pregnancies. Believe it or not, a British woman has developed a technique where she uses dried and crushed pieces of placenta to clear casting resin, creating “marble-effect frames” Amanda Cotton takes the entire placenta, first boiling and cooking it before grinding it into small pieces and then putting it into a frame-shaped mould. Prospective customers are told to keep the placenta in an Esky after giving birth before delivering it to the creative genius. “I can understand why some people might find this a bit yucky,” said Cotton, “but what attracted me was the use of materials that we think of as wasted”. She said that many parents keep their baby’s first tooth or hair clippings. “The placenta is one of the first creations the mother and baby make together – why not celebrate that with a keepsake?”
	THE newest high-tech aid to help with dieting is a prototype “electronic brassiere” which has been developed by software giant Microsoft. The so-called smart bra, pictured below, contains an electrocardiogram and electrodermal skin sensors to monitor the heart and skin, providing an indication of stress levels, according to the BBC. “Mood data” is then relayed to the wearer via a smartphone application, to warn her when there’s a danger of stress-related “emotional eating”. The researchers said that using a bra was ideal because it allowed better placement of the sensors.
	A team in the town of Bryan, Texas has set a new world record by building the biggest ever gingerbread house. Almost the size of a tennis court, the 7m high sweet edifice has earned a special certificate from Guinness World Records officials. It has a fully edible exterior built over a wooden frame, with the gingerbread including about a tonne of butter and brown sugar, more than 7,000 eggs, 3.2 tonnes of flower and 31kg of ginger. Icing and lollies were then added to decorate the amazing construction (below) which has so far survived weather extremes. “One problem we did not anticipate was bees on warm days,” said spokesman Bill Horton. “They have been coming over, getting so much sugar and stumbling around like they are drunk,” he said.
	A BRITISH greengrocer is celebrating the festive season in an unusual way which may help encourage kids to eat their vegies. Lawrence Jones from Slough has worked out exactly how many Brussels sprouts – a traditional ingredient in UK Christmas dinners – will fit inside a Mini. He was responding to a challenge from the carmaker, which was happy to report that the total was 38,182 of the loved or loathed vegetables (below). Jones also helpfully pointed out that the sprouts weighed the equivalent of 29 reindeer, and if laid out end to end would be the length of 1.6km of tinsel. The Brussels sprouts were later removed from the vehicle and taken to a local soup kitchen. Reports don’t say whether the Mini was a write-off.
	A sparkling Christmas present: Want to impress your pharmacy team or even just yourself with a special present? Rolls Royce have the perfect option, with all the options! This one-of-a-kind Phantom shown at the Dubai Motor Show in November was created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the model. The Celestial Phantom as it is called, according to Gizmag, sports a glass-particle exterior paint job, an internal headliner infused with more than a thousand fiber optic lights that accurately replicate the constellations in night sky (if you’re in the UK that is). If that’s not going to impress you, perhaps the staggering 446 diamonds hand-set into the doors, center console and rear divider will do it for you. But more than that, of course there is always the inevitable posh picnic set in the boot for your next Flemington romp.
	PET tracker. Taipei-based tech company BeLuvv have adapted one of their products to create a GPS driven pet tracking device, called ‘Puppy’. The company last year released the Guardian device to help parents track their children’s movements or especially their location in the case of a kidnap event. According to Gizmag, Puppy is thin and light enough to be worn on a collar and in case of rain or a doggy swim, is water resistant. The device connects with its app via Bluetooth Smart which activates when a pet leaves a range of 60 metres, notifying the owner of his pet’s wanderings. It also allows other people to be in the pet’s safety network and help in locating a straying best friend.
	BABY one more time. Too eager to hold your newborn? US couple Gerard and Katie Bessette have you covered; their business, 3D Babies, aims to create customised baby figurines for expectant parents, using a 3D printer and ultrasound images as a guide. The figurines (pictured) would be offered in three sizes: mini, half size and full size, ranging in price US$200 to US$600. The couple are currently crowdfunding to raise US$15,000 to buy the 3D printer they require.
	Yes , there’s an app for that. Researchers from the University of Tokyo have developed a new super-thin electronic sensor which can be used to alert parents when they need to change their babies’ nappies. “Thin enough to be comfortable, but robust enough to transmit valuable data,” the groundbreaking gadget could easily be used to initiate text messages to the smartphones of carers to tell them when their young charges are wet. First announced in July last year, the technology was initially touted as being able to be implanted to monitor body temperature or other physical characteristics – but “now they’ve applied their research to a truly worthwhile problem – knowing when a diaper is soiled without having to undress the wearer first,” according to a CNET report.
	WHY don’t pharmacies sell this? Almost the opposite of a pharmacy, Hoxton Monster Supplies (www.monstersupplies. org) sells items which could inspire ill health, such as cans of ‘A Vague Sense of Unease’, tins of ‘The Collywobbles’ and a dollop of ‘Escalating Panic’ for £8 each. The shop is an outpost of the Ministry of Stories, a creative writing and mentoring centre for young people in East London, and never fear – opening the cans won’t actually see you overcome with Mortal Terror (also on sale) but will actually reveal a story written by various authors, including Ministry founder and ‘About a Boy’ writer, Nick Hornby (apothecary of The Collywobbles tin) and some lollies for good measure. The Ministry runs creative writing workshops for those aged 8 to 18 years old to build self respect and communication. To find it, you have to go through the shop, which also sells Impacted Earwax bars, Bah! Humbugs and Salt (made from tears of sorrow).
	Another victory for science. Researchers in the UK have found that in fact a chocolate teapot is not actually useless. The team from the Nestle Product Technology Centre in York decided to take up the challenge and created a special vessel by building up a special type of dark chocolate in a series of layers. The resulting teapot (pictured below) was able to withstand boiling water for two minutes – plenty of time for the tea to brew before pouring. The experiment was broadcast on the BBC, with chief researcher John Costello saying it worked if the tea was not stirred. “When you pour it, what happens is that the chocolate on the inside of the shell melts but doesn’t move anywhere.” The result is “a lovely cup of tea with a slight hint of chocolate.”

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